


It Had To Be You

by scarsandstars



Series: Heith College AU [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, College, Crush at First Sight, Crushes, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Pining, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-13
Updated: 2018-12-19
Packaged: 2019-07-11 16:05:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 29,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15975740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scarsandstars/pseuds/scarsandstars
Summary: Keith meets a new transfer student on his first day of senior year and it becomes an instant crush. Next is what happens when his gay disaster of a self attempts to do something about his loud, growing feelings over the course of a semester.





	1. August 27th

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't ever think I'd write a college AU but my boyfriend suggested this since I wanted to write a cute Heith fic. Give him some love since he's basically come up with the entire premise! @pieceofsheith
> 
> The tagged characters who don't show up in this first chapter will appear in the following ones!

Of course, Keith is late for his first class. He stayed up too late the night before, drank maybe one or two energy drinks too many, and passed out face down on his textbook. He woke up with his loud music still blaring from his laptop and its screen glowing a blinding, shameful blue on him as he blinked awake. He saw the time flash on the screen and cursed loudly, shoved his books and pens and notebooks (and, later, he finds, an empty energy drink bottle) in his backpack; he changed his shirt, wet his hair and left, after catching a glimpse of the highlighter-shaped mark across his cheek which he decided to ignore.

He runs down the aisle until he finds the white door marked with number 204. He stands on his toes and peeps through the small window, as if he weren't really sure that the professor and all the students are in there already. After taking a deep breath and exhaling, he opens the door and steps in.

The professor doesn't pay him much mind, thankfully. Her eyebrows arch the second he makes apologetic eye contact with her, but she doesn't say anything. She flips through the pages in her hands and counts them as she keeps talking to the class about their syllabus and attendance and tests. All the desk tables seem to be occupied, and so he walks to the very back of the small room and finds an empty chair next to a guy. A really gorgeous guy.

Keith stops for a second, because he's half asleep and not the most rational and maybe he's a little bit of a mess when it comes to hot men, but it wouldn't be fair to blame him for it. He takes a closer look at the guy: his black hair looks soft and silky, falling over his eyes like it is. It reminds him vaguely of a stereotypical 90’s surfer dude, only this guy is actually hot. He's wearing a black shirt with some words Keith can't quite decipher, and a ripped denim jacket that makes him look just disheveled enough to be attractive; the guy is resting his chin on a hand, and, by god, Keith immediately falls in love with his big arms. The guy doesn't look up from his notebook until the professor clears her throat.

"Is there a problem?" she asks Keith.

His face immediately turns red. "N-no. No. Nope."

She gestures at the empty chair next to Hot Guy, who looks up at Keith with a frown. Keith immediately lets himself fall on the seat, maybe a little too loud and he might have just injured his back in the process, but the professor turns around and starts writing on the white board. So, that's a good thing.

And maybe if he concentrates hard enough on the notebook he pulls out, he'll stop feeling like Hot Guy is staring at him and laughing at his absolute buffoonery. See, he hasn't _actually_ heard him laugh, but he can _feel_ it. Keith stares blankly at the empty page of his notebook for a good two minutes, then he reaches inside his backpack in desperate search of a pen. Of course he doesn't have one, because first week of school can never be an easy thing for him. His first academic memory consists of him at four years old showing up at kindergarten, everything going well for about five minutes, then taking a bite off a little girl’s sandwich that made him violently ill for the rest of the morning. It's all been downhill from there as far as first weeks of school go: being late, being _too_ late, being sick, being hungover, ripping his jeans from butt-cheek to mid-thigh mysteriously right before entering his very first class in college three years ago.

“Hey, man,” Hot Guy says, with a voice like velvet or chocolate or something else soothing and delicious that would have made Keith’s hair stand on his arms if the sudden noise hadn’t startled him so much. He practically yelps. He turns to look at Hot Guy and finds him holding out a pen. The look on Hot Guy’s face is pretty hard to decipher—Keith can’t decide if it’s pity or amusement or, more likely, total indifference—but he’s been known to overthink every single event of every day. 

“U-uh,” Keith stammers, because Hot Guy’s eyes are fucking beautiful. Big and dark brown and _soft._ He slowly takes the pen. “Thanks.”

A fucking mess. 

“You alright?” Hot Guy asks, gesturing at Keith’s entire existence. 

That’s quite the loaded question. “Yeah. I’m fine I just,” Keith mumbles, praying to every god he’s ever heard of that his face just _feels_ hot but doesn’t look like the world’s most embarrassing stop light. “Just overslept.”

Hot Guy chuckles. It sounds like music. “Yeah, we’ve all been there.”

Keith can feel his lips stretching in an awkward smile and his palms sweating. For lack of something to say, he just nods, too eager to start up a conversation yet too damn flustered to actually make an attempt. He takes a glimpse at the clock on the wall and thinks that this will be the longest hour and a half of his life. He’s sure that at this point Hot Guy has lost all interest, so he starts to think that maybe when he returns his pen at the end of class he will have thought of something not stupid and just interesting enough to start talking to him. He’d rather focus on that than on this Intro to Quantum Mechanics class, if he’s being completely honest. 

“I’m Hunk,” Hot Guy says, stretching out a hand towards him. 

Keith, again, can only hope that he’s not blushing. “K-Keith. I’m Keith.” He shakes Hot G— _Hunk’s_ hand, and he can feel his brain going a thousand miles per hour trying to find flirtatious ways of saying that that is quite the name for a guy like him, but just as quickly as he thinks about them, his slightly more rational brain dismisses them: too forward, possibly insulting, just plain dumb. 

“I haven’t—I haven’t seen you before,” Keith says, and wonders if that’s cheesy or a little stalkery, no matter how true it is. If he had seen Hunk at any point during the last three years in this small college campus, he would _remember_.

“I just transferred,” Hunk replies, very casually, and scratches some stubble on the side of his face. “California,” he adds, without more detail. 

“Oh,” Keith frowns and nods. There’s a silence that stretches between them for a few seconds, where Keith only stares at Hunk’s face and Hunk just smiles back, pleasantly, easily. “I hope you like it here.”

Hunk’s smile widens, just a little. “I think I’ll love it.”

Keith’s heart skips a beat. Is Hunk flirting? Is Hunk hitting on him? Is he getting ahead of himself? Is he seeing things?

“The classrooms are so much nicer and I’m not sweating my ass off,” Hunk says, chuckling, and sits back on his chair. 

It takes Keith a second or three to process Hunk’s words and he follows with a chuckle of his own. Maybe he can get a hang of this. He’s never really succeeded at talking to hot men without making an ass out of himself at some point, but there’s always a first time for everything and he considers himself an adventurer. He manages to ask Hunk about his previous school and then some about California, because he’s never been; Hunk lowers his voice just enough for Keith to hear him while the professor continues to talk and write on the board. They share their family stories about how they received the news of them wanting to major in physics. Keith’s mom was supportive, because she didn’t get to go to college, but hesitant, because she had no idea what Keith could do with such a degree; while Hunk’s dad was devastated that he didn’t choose to be a chemical engineer like him (but he’d gotten over it pretty fast, according to Hunk). They take a few minutes to pretend to be paying attention to the professor, or to write down whatever she wrote on the board every now and then. Before Keith knows it they have been talking—or, well, whispering—on and off for over an hour. Even while whispering in the middle of class, Hunk is charming and funny. Keith can tell that he’s easy-going and doesn’t take himself seriously at all, and by the time the professor dismisses the class, Keith has the words “Do you wanna grab some coffee, maybe?” right at the tip of his tongue. 

Instead, he hands over Hunk’s pen and smiles. “Thanks,” he says, because he doesn’t wanna rush too much. 

“Anytime, man,” Hunk replies, carelessly throwing the pen inside his backpack, along with his notebook. “I’ll see you around,” he turns to Keith and shakes his hand, pulls him in for what Keith can best describe as a bro-hug, complete with a pat on his shoulder, and walks past him and towards the door along with the rest of his classmates. 

Keith stands in the same spot, watching the door where Hunk just disappeared. He swears he can still smell a little bit of Hunk’s cologne, and he wishes he knew how to describe it. Woodsy? Slightly sweet? He’s never been the best with words. He just knows that it was almost natural, the way Hunk made him feel at ease almost immediately, and as he pulls his backpack on he realizes he can’t wait for the next class. Thursday at noon. He thinks that seeing Hunk again is enough motivation for him to be early for once.

Later that day, Keith arrives back at the small apartment he rents with Allura just outside of campus. He drops his backpack on the floor after stepping in and plops down on the couch, lets out a loud, comfortable sigh, and shifts a little on the seat.

“You look like you had a good day,” Allura peeks out around the kitchen door, an eyebrow raised. She has a pencil right behind her ear and is wearing denim overalls and a white tank top; Keith imagined that anyone who saw her would guess she was an art student of some sort instead of a girl working on her masters in engineering.

“I did,” he says, and he’s never been as smooth as he fancies himself.

Allura is especially good at reading him like a book. “You see anything _interesting_ today, love?” she asks, knowing, smiling.

Keith puts his feet up on their coffee table and brings his pinky to his mouth, grinning and chewing on his fingernail. “Maybe.”

“What’s his name?”

Keith rolls his eyes, though he doesn’t stop grinning and doesn’t stop chewing on his fingernail. “Hunk.”

Allura raises an eyebrow again, asks Keith how fitting is that name in relation to the guy, and gets her cup of tea out of the kitchen before sitting in front of him on the coffee table and asking to hear every detail Keith can remember. Which happens to be _every_ detail.

They’ve been best friends for the past two years. They met when Allura arrived as an international student and Keith was going through a rough time, emotionally. He had broken up with a guy, who was christened “The Assclown” by Allura after everything that happened—Keith had had a hard time getting over it all and hadn’t been even slightly interested in dating again until he was mildly sure that he had healed. Luckily for him, Allura had been there, along with her creepy (but nice) goth boyfriend whose real name Keith didn’t actually know, just that he liked to be dramatic, paint his nails black, and went by the name “Lotor.” Keith knew better than to question a dude who walked around wearing giant boots with buckles no matter how hot the weather got, speaking like a 19th century aristocrat with a penchant for obscure French poetry. 

Keith was thankful that Allura had never tried to set him up with a guy. She understood him. She knew he needed time and to follow his own pace. So Keith knew Allura was as happy as she looked to hear him gush about his hot new classmate, because she knew, as much as him, that it meant that he was starting to heal.

“You need to get his number,” Allura sentences, drinking her tea.

Keith feels his face burn up. He isn’t sure if he’s ever managed to get a guy’s number. He had dated The Assclown for four years and that relationship had pretty much just fallen on his lap through no effort of his own; and after The Assclown, Keith was left with too much emotional trauma to really bother putting himself out there.

“I think I could use some help,” he admits. 

Sadly for him, Allura is a mess of her own when it comes to flirting. She has confessed many a time that she couldn’t figure out how she entered a year-long relationship with that weirdo goth, which is the term she uses to mask the fact that she is absolutely head over heels for the guy. Keith thinks it’s adorable.

“Maybe just try to sit next to him again and ask him for coffee,” she suggests. “You know, keep it casual.”

Keith chews some more on his fingernail, lost in thought. He doesn't know if he's good at "casual." He doesn't know if he's good at any of this, frankly. The image of Hunk laughing quietly behind his hand at something Keith said flashes in his mind; he can remember the warmth radiating from his arm so close to his, and how he smelled like something familiar and safe. Maybe it's worth a shot. 

It's definitely worth a shot. 

He nods. "I'm gonna do it," he says, though whether it is to reassure himself or to really inform Allura of his plans is up for debate. 

She smiles and gives his knee a soft squeeze. 

"How's the boyfriend?" Keith asks. He hasn't seen Lotor in a couple of weeks. 

Allura leans back on the coffee table, an arm stretched behind her, and she lets out a dramatic sigh that Keith guesses is a side effect of dating her goth weirdo, then takes a small sip of her tea. 

"I made the mistake of bringing up an Anne Rice book in front of him and his one friend," she says, somber. 

"Oh, _no_."

"I knew I fucked up when I said 'Lotor' sounds like the low-budget version of 'Lestat'." 

"Allura you _didn't_."

"Two very insulted goths debating vampire lore in the middle of the cafeteria," she sighed. Then she smiled. "I had a great day."

Keith chuckled. "Make sure to bring up Twilight next time." 

"That's _brilliant._ " 

They cooked their usual dinner: some very unimpressive ramen noodles, more green tea for her, a can of Pepsi for him, and each of them took their food into their respective rooms. After eating, Keith laid in bed with his headphones on, though he wasn't paying attention to the music. He didn't even pretend like he was going to open his textbooks or his notebooks. For the longest time, well into the night, he looked up at the ceiling and the dim glow of the street lamp filtering through his window, wishing there was a way for him to skip the next two days and wake up to see Hunk again already. 

He had a suspicious dream about surfing that night.


	2. August 30th

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who knew I needed human Kolivan and Thace wearing flannel? I sure didn't.

Keith spends a good twenty minutes fixing his outfit before leaving, which he can’t remember ever having done. The day he graduated high school, he put on his suit and mussed his hair, then merrily walked out the door after a vague look in the mirror. The day he had his first real date with a guy he liked, the most he did was put some gel in his hair. This time however, he’s gone through three pairs of pants and five shirts. In the end, he decides on a pair of light blue jeans which he remembers Allura once said, drunkenly, made his butt look “juicy.” He puts on a red, short-sleeve plaid shirt and then goes to make his hair look presentable. Like he just rolled out of bed, but with style. 

It feels a little silly, sure, but he doesn’t really hate the feeling. The last time he liked a guy so much, it was his first semester in college. This gorgeous dude, Shiro, had been in a few of his classes and Keith was completely infatuated with him, and they seemed to hit it off for a good couple of months. But then, of course, because life just can’t stop itself from sucking, Shiro ended up moving across the world, literally, to live with some of his family in Japan. They still talk from time to time but nothing was the same after. Keith figured he’d be alone forever after that cruel way God had of nerfing him, but then he met The Assclown and he thought he’d found a good thing, and maybe he would _not_ be alone forever like he’d feared after geography cockblocked him. And then he _did_ wish to be alone forever after all the shit The Assclown pulled. So, yeah, he’ll take a silly feeling that makes his heart feel a little happy over a never-ending sense of doom. 

He brushes his teeth, and grabs his backpack on the way out. On his way to the building he can feel his heart pounding and his palms a little sweaty, but it’s nothing a quick rub of them on the sides of jeans can’t fix. He’s early for class, and so he walks through the open door and takes a look around the room, trying to seem as nonchalant as possible before realizing Hunk isn’t there yet. So he goes and sits at the same table in the back of the room, he pulls out his notebook, starts doodling, and just waits. He hears footsteps and the rustle of notebooks and backpacks around him, some conversations he’s not paying attention to. He’s really into his doodling, so focused on it that he’s frowning and inadvertently zoning out. So when a big hand rests on his shoulder and he hears a loud “Hey, man,” he jumps off his seat a little bit. 

“Woah, hey, didn’t mean to scare you,” Hunk says as he shrugs off his backpack and sits down next to him.   
“No, it’s fine. Sorry,” Keith says, absolutely beaming at the guy. He doesn’t know why he apologizes. He doesn’t know why he feels his body tilting a little bit towards Hunk. He doesn’t know why he can’t stop smiling. It all just _is._

Hunk smiles back at him, wide and friendly and beautiful and _glowing_ , and Keith realizes he has it bad.

They talk about their other classes for a couple of minutes before the professor walks in and starts the lecture. Now, Keith doesn’t really care much for this class, and somewhere in the back of his mind there’s a voice reminding him of the loans he took and will be attempting to pay off until he’s in a retirement home in order to take this class; and the voice is practically begging him to stop looking at Hunk’s dreamy eyes, dreamy face, dreamy arms, dreamy hands, dreamy body, and actually attempt to pay attention. But Hunk is talking about a very strange professor he has on Wednesdays who has the most exotic ginger moustache he’s ever seen on a man and talks like he fled a British circus where he was the ringmaster, so there’s nothing Keith can do but rest his head on his hand and listen. And smile. And start looking a little too much at Hunk’s lips.

Eventually, they stop talk-whispering and start taking notes. Keith can see his pen make out letters and lines and numbers on the page, but he’s not really registering them—his brain is a little more focused on practicing the way he’ll ask Hunk out for some coffee. He goes over his words as the professor’s voice drones on somewhere in the distance, and by the time the lecture is coming to an end, he’s pretty confident in what he’ll say and how he’ll say it. Then, the professor dismisses the class and there’s the familiar, frantic rustle of notebooks and pens again as their classmates start to get their things back in their bags. Hunk is doing the same.

“Hey. Hey. Hunk,” Keith says, not at all the way he’d practiced.

“What’s up, man?”

Keith feels his ears burn up. Maybe his cheeks and nose and neck too. Maybe. He takes a deep breath. “Do you have class after this?”

Hunk frowns and looks up to the ceiling for a couple of seconds and Keith just wants to take his face and kiss him. “I don’t have my next class until 5, I think.”

“Oh, cool,” Keith replies, stupidly. But he’ll bang his head against some wall later. “Do you w-do you wanna get some coffee or something? I know a really great place.”

He doesn’t. The only three places he knows are average, but a small lie goes a long way, and he can feel his heart pounding and his palms sweating again, but he’s mastered the art of pretending nothing is wrong.

“Oh, sure. I can’t ever say no to coffee,” Hunk says and _winks_ , and Keith feels like the air got punched out of him.

Keith chuckles. In reality it’s a little closer to an embarrassing infatuated giggle, but he’s not keeping score.

They arrive at a very small, very narrow coffee shop just around the corner from the school. The place is dimly lit in spite of it being minutes before 2 in the afternoon; the walls are decorated with artsy black and white pictures of the city and strings of yellow light bulbs that match the sign at the far edge of the room that says COFFEE. There’s only five tables inside, the largest of which sits four people, and seeing as it’s the only free one they make their way to sit there. The coffee shop is warm and smells delicious, a blend of coffee and tea leaves and of something being baked behind the wall. Keith likes this place better than the other coffee shops and the couple of Starbucks around campus, mostly because it’s quiet but also because it’s homey and cheap. He can feel his heart pounding and a void in his belly as he looks at the simple menu in his hands, Hunk sitting straight across from him and rubbing his stubble with his index and thumb as he reads.

“Is the coffee strong?” Hunk asks before gently chewing on the tip of his pinky, frowning at the menu. It makes Keith’s heart stop for a second. It makes Keith take a few seconds to process the question, too. 

“A little, yeah,” he says. 

Hunk is happy with the answer. He lets Keith know that he’ll need a serious caffeine fix to stay awake during his next class in a couple of hours, which Keith sadly isn’t taking in the same group. Hunk orders a plain black coffee for himself and Keith settles with a cappuccino; smiling wide, Hunk stops the waitress to order a tray of three chocolate chip cookies, and then his bright, beautiful smile is turned to Keith.

“Don’t worry, we’ll share. You look like you need some cookies in you.” 

Keith chuckles, then shrugs and makes a vague gesture at himself. Can’t really argue with solid logic, especially when it’s coming from a handsome face.

“Can I just say,” Hunk says and adds a dramatic pause that makes Keith’s heart stay still for a moment. “I really can’t stand the professor.”

“Oh,” Keith says, then immediately pushes himself back into a rational state. “God, I know. Her voice would bore sloths to death.”

Hunk laughs and makes an exaggerated impression of the professor’s droning voice, stretching out every syllable to make it last at least three seconds. It makes Keith laugh hard enough that the people on the next table over turn to give him a quick judgmental look, and Keith wants to quiet down, but Hunk is putting his all into the performance, moving his arm around in slow-motion as if he were writing on the board as he continues his exaggerated droning voice. After a few more minutes, once Hunk has stopped, Keith takes a deep breath and wipes a tear forming at the corner of his eye. But then Hunk says one last phrase. Keith’s stomach hurts from laughing, but he can’t remember the last time this happened. Sure, he’s had his fair share of giggle fits with Allura and Lotor but this feels different. A good kind of different.

“Hey, Hunk!” a male voice yells behind Keith’s back.

Hunk looks up and smiles wide, and immediately waves a very enthusiastic arm before he stands up. Keith sees a skinny guy approaching him, and only catches a glimpse of his carefully disheveled brown hair before Hunk pulls him in for another bro-hug. Maybe Hunk does just give them around like candy.

“I thought you wouldn’t be here until later,” Hunk says, sounding pleased that that wasn’t the case. 

The guy takes a step back. He smiles and puts a hand behind his neck. He has pretty eyes and a sharp jaw and all Keith can do is sink a little into himself, without even realizing that he’s frowning. 

“I had some stuff to do,” the guy says and _winks_ in a way that makes Keith a little suspicious. 

Hunk gives him a pat on the shoulder. Keith sees him wink back, then shake his head a little bit in fake disapproval. He has no idea what’s going on but he doesn’t really feel like asking; he doesn’t feel like opening his mouth at all, really; he thinks he wants to shrink so much into himself that he can become invisible to the human eye. But that’s not exactly doable, so he just chews on his lip and looks around, for lack of a better thing to do, while they exchange a couple more cryptic words. 

“Oh, Keith, I’m sorry dude, this is Lance,” Hunk says. “Lance, this is Keith. He’s in my intro to quantum physics class.”

“Hey, man,” Lance says with a friendly tone and stretches an arm to shake his hand. Keith takes it in silence and does the whole shaking thing that he’s not super fond of, but he doesn’t wanna seem rude, no matter who this person is. He likes to tell himself that he’s outgrown his antisocial asshole phase. But that’s not always true.

“Hey,” is all he says.

“You going somewhere? Wanna have some coffee with us?” Hunk asks, because, Keith knows, that’s the _polite_ thing to do, the _considerate_ thing to do. And Hunk is possibly the most instantly friendly person he’s met. It’s probably nothing.

Lance agrees to sit with them, and he does. He takes the chair between Hunk and Keith and drops his messenger bag on the floor. The waitress brings over Keith’s and Hunk’s drinks along with the cookies, and when she asks Lance if he’ll have anything he answers with a cheesy line that somehow makes her giggle. Keith sees Hunk discreetly roll his eyes and smile, like he already knows this is a habit of Lance’s. It feels odd. He can’t really point out what about it feels odd. He just knows he’s still a little sunken into himself as he sips some of his coffee and Hunk and Lance start to chat and joke. And it’s not even that they’re making inside jokes or talking about things only they could know; Keith is painfully aware that he could join in the conversation at any given second, but all he does is sit there and awkwardly chuckle behind his coffee mug. 

It feels like Lance interrupted something. Keith knows he’s being irrational, he knows he has no right to feel this way. He didn’t actually ask Hunk out on a date. He’s just all caught up in himself and the tangled, frantic mess in his brain. He can hear statements like “He could never like me back, he would never date me, how do I even know he’s into guys” playing over and over in his head in an obnoxious loop that feels like an even more unbearable drone than the professor’s voice. “You’ve spent literally _three and a half hours **total**_ talking to him, Keith, what the fuck is the matter with you,” is another thing his brain likes to point out, and he knows it’s true, but that doesn’t make it any less awkward. He would very much like to dissolve into thin air. 

“Keith?” Hunk asks, instantly pulling Keith out of his private mental torture. 

Keith gapes at him for a second; Hunk and Lance are both frowning and looking strangely expectant, and Keith honestly has no idea how long he’s spent zoned out. 

“Yeah?”

“Do you wanna?” Hunk asks. 

Keith blinks, then makes a low, embarrassing humming noise for what feels like seventeen straight minutes. “Do I wanna…?”

“Come to the party,” Lance says, still frowning in something that feels like judgement and disapproval, but Keith is known for reading too much into things, as his eternal minutes of mental self-flagellation show.

“Oh. Yeah, sure,” Keith replies, because he’s panicking. “Sure, I’d love to. Sounds great. Yeah.”

“Awesome,” Hunk exclaims and gives him a strong pat on the shoulder, then a quick, friendly little shake. “It’s gonna be great, man. I can’t wait.”

Keith doesn’t even try to ask when this party is going to happen, so he just nods and smiles as excitedly as he can. 

“Gimme your number, Keith,” Hunk says, pulling out his phone and moving his thumb across the screen. “I’m gonna text you the address later, okay?”

Keith’s heart catches in his throat and he can feel a little blush creeping up his cheeks. He stammers a little when he gives Hunk is number (when he _gives Hunk his number_ because he _asked for it_ ), and when Hunk smiles before putting his phone back in his jacket, Keith magically forgets the last half hour or so. He forgets Lance is there, he forgets everything his shit brain said, he forgets the weird winky faces Lance and the waitress keep exchanging, he forgets the fact that he’s been drinking his coffee with no sugar for some ungodly reason. He smiles back. 

He manages to join the conversation, a little. He makes some comments here and there, laughs along with them, tries really hard to shed off some of the awkwardness he’s been wearing as a cloak. Pretty soon, though, he remembers it’s Thursday and he has to be at work sooner rather than later. So he stands up and grabs his backpack, and says goodbye to Lance, and says goodbye to Hunk—who pulls him in for another bro-hug that makes Keith’s silly heart flutter. 

“Take your cookie!” Hunk says as soon as Keith’s turned his back to them. 

“Nah, you keep it. You’ll owe me one, though,” Keith says, and Hunk laughs heartily. 

“You got it.”

Keith doesn’t know why he said that. He really, really doesn’t know how he managed to say that. 

He walks with his hands in his pockets and his ears burning a furious red, watching his steps and obsessively going over every word and practically every breath he took during the time he spent with Hunk. And with that Lance fellow. Twenty minutes later, his ears are no longer red, and he’s managed to make his brain shut up, at least a little bit. He walks through stands at the farmers’ market where he works part-time on the weekends, and maybe he’s vaguely hoping Hunk will text him soon, and maybe he’s already thinking about ways he can start up a conversation. And carry it. 

His boss is standing behind their stand where they sell hot mulled cider and apple cider donuts. Kolivan is an extremely tall man. He’s probably the tallest man Keith has ever seen. The dude is frowning 90% of the time he’s awake and has long hair that he always wears in a braid; he’s usually wearing some form of flannel in dark blues and burgundies and has very light brown eyes, which Keith has noticed look exactly the color of honey under the sun. So, Kolivan is intimidating at first sight, but Keith has known him all his life. His mom and him have been friends for what feels like thousands of years, according to them, so he’s basically his uncle. Keith is sure he called him that when he was very little. Uncle Kolivan is a big old softie, too, once you get past that whole “gigantic wall of frowning muscle” thing. Uncle Kolivan has been married for seven years to the man he’s been with for twenty. His husband is a man called Thace, and because they were always hanging out with Keith’s parents, when he was little he got himself an Uncle Thace as well. Sometimes Thace mans the stand along with Kolivan, and when they do Keith likes to sit back and just watch them. They argue sometimes, and when they do it’s always under their breaths; every now and then he’ll see Kolivan inhale very deeply and squeeze his eyes shut while he’s standing tall and stoic and Thace is pinching the bridge of his nose and flopping down on a chair. After that, he never knows how or why, but they make up and Keith can tell just by looking at the way Thace gives Kolivan’s shoulder a soft squeeze or Kolivan says Thace’s name in a way that sounds _just_ different enough to be clear that they’re okay. 

After Keith’s dad died, both he and his mom found comfort and endless support in Kolivan and Thace. Thace would be there to help Keith with his homework when his mom, Krolia, worked double shifts to make ends meet. Kolivan helped her find a better paying job and took Keith to the movies when Krolia had some legal things to work out. They’re the reason Keith wasn’t (entirely) afraid of coming out to his mom and just sat down with her one day in their living room and started off with “I want to tell you something.” Krolia loved them to death. All three of them. They were the most precious thing Keith had, his family.

“You’re late,” Kolivan says in a low voice that sounds very close to a growl. 

“Yeah, sorry,” Keith puts his backpack behind the stand and under the table, hidden behind the red tablecloth. He pulls his navy blue apron out from under there and ties it around his waist, his mind going a thousand miles per hour to come up with a reason for his tardiness that isn’t ‘hot guy, coffee.’ Kolivan doesn’t need to know _that_ , precious part of his life as he is. “I had. School,” he adds in a very impressive robotic voice. 

Kolivan raises an eyebrow and narrows his honey eyes. He looks like he sees right through Keith’s little white lie, but it’s really not that big of a deal. “Don’t be late again,” he says. 

“I won’t,” Keith says. 

He stands by the table and by Kolivan’s side for three hours, until the sunlight is tilted and looks warmer and everything seems bathed in an orange tint. He fills paper cups with mulled cider and hands out the donuts, counts the change, puts it all in the red metal box that looks like a lunchbox from the 30s, or something just as old. There isn’t much small talk, or much talk at all, because Kolivan is not a chatty man by nature and Keith is a shy little fuck by divine intervention, but they’re okay with exchanging a few sentences here and there and it’s really never uncomfortable. He helps Kolivan pack up, and then lets Kolivan drive him to the street behind his apartment as he does when they finish during the evening. 

“Take care, kid,” Kolivan says, his giant hand on Keith’s shoulder before he steps off the pickup truck. 

“I will,” Keith smiles. “Thank you.”

Kolivan smiles before driving away.

Keith walks up the steps to his apartment smelling of grass and mulled cider because he accidentally spilled some on his shirt, because that’s just who he is as a person. As soon as he walks through the door, he shrugs off his shirt and carelessly throws it in the hamper when he walks past the bathroom. He walks to the kitchen, gets a can of soda from the fridge, and sits on the closest counter to drink it. Allura isn’t home. She goes to a self defense class on Thursday evenings and is usually home at around 8:00, so he still has a couple hours with the apartment all to himself, to do something exciting or something dangerous, be wild and unpredictable and get a little crazy. Or just to sit shirtless on the kitchen counter drinking a soda. That’s totally fine by him.

After he’s taken a shower, he pulls on a pair of boxers and goes to lie on his bed. He starts to watch some videos for class on his laptop, lying sideways on the mattress and absentmindedly scratching his belly while he eats some Doritos, because Kolivan’s healthy dinners never ever leave him feeling full. A few minutes go by and he starts to doze off, and he’s about to fall over when the loud chime of his phone abruptly wakes him. He fumbles for it and sees an unknown number on the screen above the text. 

_it was fun hanging out with you today buddy_   
_here’s the address for tth party_

Keith’s heart drops and it turns and it sets his ears on fire. His eyes focus on the word “buddy” instead of the actual address where he’s supposed to go tomorrow, apparently. Out of some weird reflex he’s only seen in romantic movies featuring teenage girls, he lays face-up on his bed and feels his face crack into a giant smile as he holds his phone up above his head and studies the text like it was the subject of his next midterm. “It was fun hanging out with you today buddy.” Keith sighs. Then another text pops up on his screen. 

_what are u up to_

Keith drops his phone on his face. He immediately recovers, and he’s sure the mild hit his nose took will probably help him think of more coherent answers. 

_Just studying and u?_

Minutes fly by and they turn into an hour, and then they turn into two hours, with Keith narrating the boring videos he has to watch and Hunk repeatedly typing ‘lol’ and ‘HAHAHAHA’ as replies. Keith wants to call him. He even considers it for a second, while his heart is fluttery and his smile is wide and his cheeks are tinted pink, but he reads Hunk’s texts complaining about his roommates and his homework, and he decides that he’ll ask for a phone call some other time. It’s too soon. And he’s sure his voice would give him away even more than his words. He wouldn’t want to ruin it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	3. August 31st

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith goes to the party with Allura. Tequila isn't his friend.

“It’s just a party, I don’t think you need an invitation,” Keith yells from inside his closet where he’s currently looking for that one nice-looking black button-up shirt he owns. 

Allura hums as she sits on the edge of his bed, her legs crossed. She’s been ready to go for an hour. She put on leggings, boots, and a dress; fixed her silver-colored bob, put on some mascara, and she was ready to go. 

“Any chance you’ll be done before the semester is over, babe?” Allura says, scrolling through something on her phone. 

“I’m _done,_ Allura, I just have to find my shirt.”

“Sure,” she says. Keith huffs. He fights a long scarf to the death after it accidentally wraps around his arm. 

“I can’t wait to meet this guy.”

“Don’t embarrass me,” Keith warns, now struggling with a hanger. 

“I would _never,_ ” Allura says with a dramatic voice that Keith thinks Lotor would envy during one of his romantic poetry readings or whatever it is he and his goth friends do for fun. 

(He knows they mostly watch Netflix and go to bars. He knows that sometimes they go to a karaoke bar and sing cheesy 80’s songs. He knows they play cards sometimes. He just likes to mock them.)

Keith finds the shirt, at last, and steps out of the very small yet impossibly cramped closet kicking a bunch of his shoes around. He stands right outside of it and begins to put it on. “Allura, I love you, but you’re a horrible wingman. Please don’t try it.”

Allura frowns and blinks at him a bunch of times, too insulted to process any words. “How dare you. I’m an excellent wingman.”

“You’re really, really not.”

“Name one time I fucked up,” she challenges. 

Keith finishes buttoning his shirt and just stares at her in silence. He chews on his lip and lets out a really, really deep sigh, before narrowing his eyes and showing his palms. Allura purses her lips and looks at the ceiling for a second, before taking a breath and going back to her phone. She lets out a dignified ‘hmmph’ sound and sits up straight. They don’t have to talk to know they’re both thinking of the time Allura got drunk at another party and decided she was gonna set up her friend with the weirdo goth she hadn’t stopped mocking all night, even though her friend hadn’t shown any interest. 

“Anyway,” she says. “Can we finally leave?”

“One sec—”

“Don’t,” Allura stops him before he can reach the bottle of cologne he rarely uses—he got it as a Christmas present the year before and three fourths of the bottle are still there. “Let me,” she says and sprays some on his neck and some on his wrists, because she knows Keith in his nervous wreck of a mind would end up dumping the remains of the liquid all over himself. 

“Now you’re all set,” she smiles, pleased. 

“Okay,” Keith gives her a sweet smile in return. 

Allura is a speed demon. She gives off this image of being overly cautious and if anyone imagines her driving, Keith is sure they’d imagine she’d drive just as slowly as a 93 year-old grandmother with terrible eyesight. But she drives an eleven year-old stick-shift Honda, and she drives this very resilient toaster on wheels like she was perpetually in a racing track. Keith is mostly used to it, but sometimes, like today, he discreetly clings to his seatbelt or the edge of the window glass or whatever other surface he can grip in terror. Allura sings along, very loudly, to her music as she takes turns and follows her phone’s directions. She’s a good driver. Keith isn’t _really_ scared for his life. She’s just so fucking fast. 

When they arrive at the address, Allura drives around the block a couple of times until she can park. As they walk towards the house, she locks her arm with Keith’s and pets his hand, like she can sense the anxiety slowly turning to dread in him. 

“It’s gonna be fine,” she says. “We’ll have fun.”

Keith nods. 

There’s loud music blaring from the house, and people drinking out of red cups outside on the yard and the porch. Keith can’t recognize the song playing, but his palms are sweating and his brain is busy tripping over every greeting he can think of to pay much attention. They walk up the steps, and he looks back at Allura for reassurance. She just nods and shrugs, and he keeps walking. “What’s the worst that can happen?” is what she meant to ask with that shrug, and as he walks through a small sea of people, Keith tries to answer the question in his mind. What’s the worst that could happen? He’ll get drunk and make a fool of himself, or he’ll be sober and he’ll make a fool of himself. So either Hunk will remember it and not talk to him ever again, or he’ll be drunk too and they can go back to whatever beginning of a friendship they are having like nothing ever happened. It’s a world of possibilities here in this party. So he walks up to the kitchen and hands Allura a red cup full of beer, takes one for himself and starts to drink it like a man would drink water after being lost in the desert for 72 straight hours. 

“Easy there, tiger,” Allura warns, because they both know Keith is a lightweight. 

Keith doesn’t listen. Allura respects that. 

They start to make their way out of the kitchen when someone calls out Keith’s name. The voice sounds high-pitched and familiar, and when Keith turns around he sees that Lance dude waving his arm wildly at him. He’s standing on the other side of the living room, next to a fireplace, a very calm painting of a seascape hanging on the wall above. Keith wonders whose house this even is. His heart drops when he sees Hunk standing next to Lance, wearing a yellow shirt with some red logo on it and a black denim vest that looks more like someone crudely tore the sleeves off a jacket. There’s two girls with them, a tall blonde and a short girl with short hair and big, round glasses. Keith swallows hard, watching Hunk take a sip of his cup and waving at him with a lot less enthusiasm than Lance, who keeps calling out his name like he hadn’t just seen him directly in the eye across the room. He touches Allura’s arm and moves his head to indicate where they’re heading, and off they go, touching people as delicately as they can to get them out of the way. 

“Hey, man!” Lance says in a loud, excited tone that Keith isn’t sure what to make of. He immediately gives Keith a pat on the shoulder that manages to move him a few inches away, so strong it is, and gives a strange squeeze. “We were just talking about you!”

“Hey,” Keith mumbles, suddenly very self-conscious. He looks up at Hunk and yeah, there’s the fluttering butterflies again. He can see the black lines of an intricate tattoo on Hunk’s arm, and he has to make a conscious effort to pull his eyes away and actually talk to the guy. “Hey. Hi,” he says. 

He needs another beer already. 

“We were wondering when you’d show up,” Lance continues, and wraps an arm around Hunk, who just chuckles and keeps drinking his beer. 

“Yeah, we were just, uh… Parking, you know,” Keith says. He touches Allura’s arm again and gently but nervously pulls her forward to make her join the conversation. “This is Allura, she’s my best friend. This is… Lance. And Hunk.”

Allura says hello to them and Keith can practically see Lance’s jaw drop to the floor, little hearts forming a dancing circle around his head. He can see him switching gears to Flirt Mode inside his brain and he sees him shake her hand and smile at her the same way he smiled at the waitress at the coffee shop, and he almost rolls his eyes. He looks up to see that Hunk _does_ roll his eyes. He bites his lips to stop from laughing out loud. 

Allura isn’t exactly impressed by Lance, but she’s always been polite and tactful, so she nods and smiles at him. Hunk shakes her hand as well, and Keith has never been so grateful at her discreetness than he is right this second. 

“This is Romelle, and this is Pidge,” Hunk says, gesturing first at the tall blonde and then at the short girl. “We’re in lab together.”

They all say hi to each other. They seem impressed with Allura being the one getting her masters degree already, and Allura is impressed that Pidge is some kind of prodigy, already in her last year of college when she’s only twenty. The two of them seem to hit it off, talking easily and vividly while Lance continues to make heart-eyes at Allura and Keith keeps half his face inside the cup for no reason. He’s just not good at this. One person he can handle, he can even be funny, once or twice people have said he’s charming. Two people are challenging but most times he can manage if they’re two people he knows, it can be fun, he can get some words, sometimes even some jokes in. But any more than that and he turns into a statue, a stiff, quiet, awkward monument to social anxiety, and he’s been working on that for years but sometimes it’s harder, especially in situations like this. It was fun to text Hunk. At least on his side. He laughed and smiled and stared lovingly at his phone screen and they texted for hours. But now he’s forgotten how to speak. He can only keep drinking and nodding and vaguely smiling while the five of them talk.

Lance spends a fair amount of time talking about how brilliant Hunk is in the classes they share. He says he’s the luckiest to have been paired with him in lab. He says a girl in their lab is already in love with Hunk and that he doesn’t blame her, and as he says this he pokes Hunk’s side with his elbow and winks, making him laugh; and as he says that, Keith feels his ears burn right up as he chugs the rest of his beer. Awkwardly, he mumbles he’s gonna get another beer and slides away from the group before anyone can stop or follow him. On the way to the back of the kitchen, he finds a group of people doing tequila shots, so he metaphorically shrugs, literally thinks “fuck it,” and stands next to a girl waiting for his own shot. He does one shot, then he does two shots, he does a third one and goes back on his way. Historically, José Cuervo has not been a wise or kind advisor to him. José Cuervo has not been merciful or forgiving. José Cuervo has made him throw up on the side of the street _and_ inside Lotor’s car, make out with a drag queen in a bathroom which made him wash glitter off of his entire being for a week after, and seriously consider drilling a hole in his head because José Cuervo’s ghost convinced him that that would hurt less than the hangover that one time. But that’s the thing about José Cuervo. It makes these things happen and then makes Keith forget they ever happened the next time he comes across a bottle.

All misfortunes forgotten, he goes to get more beer in his cup and then stumbles his way slightly diagonally to where he left the group. He sees Lance has moved to stand next to Allura, and almost laughs out loud at the contained “poor misguided soul” vibe hidden in her smile. Maybe he does laugh. Maybe he chuckles.

“Keith, buddy,” Hunk says, and pulls him close with a hand on his shoulder. “I’m so glad you’re here, Lance is driving me nuts.”

Keith’s face is burning up. Basically a tomato attached to his neck. He smiles as Hunk gives him a little shake and then lets go, and he stays smiling a stupid smile. He doesn’t even say “thanks,” which is the only word he can think of, because José Cuervo makes the part of his brain controlling his vocabulary take a break until it decides it’s time for Keith to put his foot in his mouth.

They all talk, they all laugh; Pidge and Allura are having a great old time being engineering dweebs together, and Romelle is happy to join their conversation when it takes a violent u-turn into the topic of boys. It’s a topic Keith would be interested in, usually, but his phone pings and he pulls it out to see a message from Shiro. When he opens it, he sees that it’s a selfie he’s taken, looking bored and about to die in what he explains is a family reunion. Keith types out a very simple reply that is probably more typos than words and doesn’t realize Lance is peeking over his shoulder until it’s too late.

“Hey, who’s that guy,” Lance asks, _loudly,_ sounding almost insulted for reasons Keith can’t even understand. “That your boyfriend or something?”

Usually, Keith would not reply to this with kindness. He would probably shove Lance really hard and start yelling something stupid like “Why don’t you say that to my face,” even though it _was_ said to his face. It’s the principle of it. But Lance has caught him off-guard, and he suddenly feels extremely self-conscious, and his plump tomato of a face looks up to see quizzical looks on Hunk and Pidge and Romelle. It activates a strange fight or flight response in him that doesn’t actually do either, and instead just makes his skin burn up. 

_“No,”_ Keith says almost indignant. “He’s my friend. He lives in Japan.”

Lance raises his hands apologetically. “Sorry, man, didn’t mean to insult you.”

 _Great,_ Keith thinks. _Now they will think I’m a homophobe unless I actually come out to this group of strangers._

“S’alright,” he mumbles, burying his face in his beer cup.

Then there’s an awkward silence that Hunk is wise enough to break by suggesting he and Lance go get everyone else some more beer and maybe they can go into the backyard. The sense of relief everyone feels is tangible, and when Hunk says “Awesome!” and grabs Lance by the shoulders to make him head to the glass door, Pidge and Romelle follow them, and Allura makes Keith stay a couple of steps behind with her. 

“Are you okay?” she whispers.

“Yeah I’m totally fine,” he replies, slurring his words.

“Oh, _darling,”_ she pats his arm. “Well, he’s really cute.”

“Mmhm.”

“And fun.”

“Yeah.”

“And smart.”

“I know.”

“I think he likes you,” she says with a smug smile. And before Keith can say anything back in his slightly drunken fog, she giggles and pulls him out through the sliding door into the backyard, where they meet the rest of them around an old, beat up ping pong table.

“We’re _not_ playing beer pong,” Hunk says, sounding exhausted.

“Yes we are,” Lance replies and bounces the ball on his hand. “Keith and Pidge go with Hunk. Romelle and Allura come with me,” he says, in a way so transparent that even Keith smiles and rolls his eyes. He would think it was kinda cute, even, if Lance hadn’t just done what he did. 

Keith knows Lance didn’t mean any harm. That doesn’t mean he can’t be annoyed and a little pissed at him. 

Allura smiles. Keith would be cackling at Lance if he had taken another tequila shot, maybe, but instead he goes and stands next to Hunk and Pidge.

“I am so sorry,” Hunk says.

“’S fine.”

Lance sets the rules, or some semblance of them. Left hand means two drinks. If the ball bounces whoever catches it gets to pick someone to have a drink. A bunch of other things Keith can’t even process, so he just nods and says “sure,” and hopes his hand-eye coordination isn’t as shot as he suspects. It’s probably worse. 

Lance is the first to throw the ball, and after it lands in a cup, Hunk drinks it. Then Hunk does the same and everyone stops to watch Lance chug down the beer and turn to grin at Allura, who nods with her lips tightly locked into a little smile. Keith can see Pidge pinching the bridge of her nose and sigh, and everyone else chuckling at the whole thing.

“It’s your turn,” Lance tells Allura. 

“Sorry, I’m driving,” she answers, very politely. 

“Yeah. Me too,” Pidge says, and so it ends up being Keith and Hunk against Lance and Romelle, which no one objects to. 

After a while, Lance keeps making up rules that end up making Keith lose count of how many cups he drinks. Lance drinks a lot of his own, but maybe less than Hunk. Romelle turns out to be the best one at the game, and she’s barely had to drink. Keith isn’t sure how much time has passed or how many beers he’s chugged, but he knows everything everyone says is hilarious and he knows the cigarette someone pulled out of nowhere is pretty good. They’re still standing around the table and one of Romelle’s friends is telling a road trip story: her face is flushed and she can’t make it through one full sentence without bursting into giggles. Not to mention she’s constantly being interrupted by another girl who joined them god knows when, and slurs very loud “No no no”s to then attempt to explain what really happened.

When they decide to sit down, Keith doesn’t even realize he immediately goes to sit next to Hunk on top of a very long planter, where Allura, Pidge, and Lance sit at the other end. Romelle and her two friends go to the bathroom, and Keith completely loses track of them. He also doesn’t realize that he’s drunk enough to very slowly lean back into Hunk, like the world’s slowest magnet, until he can feel his arm and the side of his body against his back. He’s warm and comfortable even though he makes Keith shake every time he laughs. It takes Keith maybe ten minutes to realize what’s going on, that he’s practically lying on top of Hunk and no one’s bothered to tell him to stop because it’s weird. He has to do everything himself. Very slowly, with what little lucidity he has left, he straightens up away from Hunk and drinks some more of his beer, because fuck it, he’s already gonna die after Lance and Romelle kicked their asses at beer pong.

But then Hunk puts a hand on his shoulder and squeezes it. Not pulling him close, but maybe just so he doesn’t move further away. Keith’s breath catches in his throat, and he knows his ears light up red but he can probably blame it on all the alcohol. Hunk touches the back of his neck with his fingers as he laughs and joins in on Pidge’s lab story; Keith can feel Hunk’s fingertips moving in very small circles, and while his brain lights up telling him to freak out and abandon ship, his drunken body just relaxes into it. It’s nice. Neither of them move an inch, after. 

“I think we should get going,” Allura yawns at 3:45 in the morning, after catching her breath from a good twenty minute laughing fit.

“Oh, no, Allura, stay,” Lance says and holds her hand as she stands up. He’s also pretty fucking drunk. Apparently it makes him soft.

“I think we should leave, too, everyone else is going,” Pidge, the only other sober person, says, pointing at the considerably smaller crowd.

Lance frowns and _pouts,_ which makes Keith giggle incoherently and lean back into Hunk again. After a quick and only slightly dismissive “Sorry, Lance,” Allura walks over to Keith and grabs his arm, trying to help him stand and failing, because he’s still giggling for no reason and couldn’t keep his balance if someone paid him a million dollars. He just drunkenly tumbles back into one of the bushes.

“Come on, big guy,” Hunk grunts, considerably less drunk but still quite buzzed, as he stands up to help Allura. He leans in just enough to put Keith’s arm around his shoulders and seems to effortlessly pick him up where Allura failed. Keith is still giggling, barely processing anything as Allura puts his other arm around her shoulders and they start to walk.

“I love you _ssso much_ Allura you’re my beds friend,” Keith slurs, looking at her, somehow. 

She shakes her head and laughs. Hunk crackles. 

“Thanks,” she grunts as they walk out into the porch. “You’re my beds friend too.”

Keith smiles, very pleased with himself for expressing a healthy emotion. 

Allura and Hunk help Keith stumble down the stairs into the front yard, Pidge following close behind while Lance stumbles his way to Allura’s side. Keith can hear Pidge laugh under her breath, and when he looks to his side, he can see Lance just smiling at Allura. He’s pretty sure Allura mentioned her boyfriend once or twice in the past… however many hours they’ve been here, but Lance has a soft look in his eyes and Keith’s pretty sure he would be doing the same in Allura’s place: just smile and wait for him to sober up to let him down easy, because he’s not a bad guy, he’s just drunk and maybe too eager. Like a puppy. This thought makes Keith start giggling again, and he loses his balance and falls into Hunk’s side. 

“Hey, buddy,” Hunk says, miraculously not falling over. He helps Keith stand up a little straighter and very gently touches the side of his face to make him look up. “You okay there?”

Keith feels like he’s died and gone to heaven, and Hunk is the soft, handsome, sexy angel God decided was going to greet him at the pearly gates, or whatever, and he can feel the silly, infatuated nature of his tiny smile as it stretches across his lips, but he can’t do anything to stop it. 

“Oh,” Hunk says, his voice as soft as he’s drunk. “Gosh, Keith, your eyes are so pretty.” 

He looks straight into Keith’s eyes—stops carrying his weight down the street just to look into Keith’s eyes. Keith feels his heart skip a beat, and his eyes widen for a second before they are reached by the stretch of his flustered smile. He chuckles and lets go of Allura’s shoulders to give Hunk a playful, clumsy pat on the chest. He doesn’t see Allura’s eyes wide as plates or the way she covers her mouth and looks away, struggling to stay silent. 

“Hunk. Hunk you’re ssso… _Wow_ ,” Keith slurs, his palm still on Hunk’s chest. He can feel the soft rumble of Hunk’s laughter. “Like. Wow. Hot. You know? Like _wow,_ like, you’re like… Hot, you know? Like…”

“Yes, sweetie, I’m sure he knows,” Allura interrupts his drunken babbling, like a knight in shining armor preventing Keith from opening his mouth to accommodate his foot any more. “Let’s just get you to the car, okay?”

“But he’s so hot, Allura,” Keith mumbles. 

“Yes,” she says. 

“You’re a killjoy,” Keith pouts, or makes a face resembling a pout, and his arm turns to mush when Allura puts it around her shoulders again. 

“I know.”

“You’re a… You’re mean,” he growls, while Hunk laughs and grabs his hand as they get close to the car Allura points at. Hunk’s hand is big and warm on his, a little rough, and maybe he’s squeezing it unnecessarily because Keith is totally sure he can stand up on his own without falling on his ass, but he’s not complaining. Before he knows it, he’s idly stroking the back of Hunk’s hand with his thumb. Allura makes a gesture at Hunk and slides under Keith’s arm to walk around her car. 

Keith just melts into Hunk’s side. Hunk’s hand is still wrapped around his and he can feel his warmth and smell beer and secondhand cigarette smoke and cologne on him, mixed with the natural scent of him, and he closes his eyes for a second just to enjoy it. His legs are jelly and his bones are paper, but Hunk is helping him stay upright, and Keith couldn’t be happier, just standing there, tilted into Hunk with his forehead practically tucked under his chin. He’s sure that there must be a silly smile on his face. He wants to wrap his other arm around Hunk and stay like that for a few hours, or for a few days maybe; just breathing him in, feeling his safe warmth and his heart beating in his ear. Maybe a week. Or a month. Or forever. It’s a great place to be. 

Allura says goodbye to Pidge and also to Lance, nodding with tight lips to whatever he’s saying to her as she opens her car door. She stretches inside the car to unlock the passenger door and Pidge opens it. Hunk grunts “Come on, buddy,” and practically moves Keith like a ragdoll to sit him down. Keith holds on to Hunk’s hand a second too long, maybe, but Hunk doesn’t let go either. Keith looks at him. Hunk has such pretty eyes, too, and a pretty smile. And pretty skin and pretty stubble and pretty hair, and Keith is smiling, somehow convinced that he’s actually saying all of this out loud because Hunk should know it. He sinks into the seat. 

“You’re all set,” Hunk says, finally letting go of Keith and saying goodbye to Allura before standing straight and closing the door. 

“You’re a mess, Jesus,” Allura says as she fastens Keith’s seat belt and then starts the car. When she turns to look at him again, he’s leaning awkwardly into the door, looking out the window at Hunk and Pidge and Lance walking away. There’s a smile on his flushed face, and not two minutes after she starts driving, Keith’s passed out. 

Allura sighs and shakes her head. She listens to her music and drives, and takes another look at a very loudly snoring Keith when she parks the car outside their building. His neck is bent in what looks like a very uncomfortable angle and she’s sure he’s drooling on the door. She contemplates the brick exterior of the building they call home in this timid 4:26 a.m. light, the little bushes around the black door. She imagines the dimly lit hallway and the slightly better lit staircase. Two flights of stairs into their apartment. She sighs. She ponders. She looks around the lonely, tranquil street for a couple of minutes and gives Keith a gentle pat on the shoulder and shakes him.


	4. September 1st

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> it's getting a lil gay in here

“You _left me in the car_ ,” Keith exclaims in disbelief. 

Allura is making breakfast in the kitchen. He knows, because the air smells of bacon and it’s making him queasy, as if stumbling up the stairs with a severe case of exploding head hadn’t been bad enough. To top it off, after he slams the door shut, he hears Allura laugh. 

“Good morning, sunshine!” she says, loud and high-pitched and it feels like needles behind Keith’s eyes. 

“You left me _in the car_ ,” he repeats as he steps into the kitchen. 

“Yup,” she scrambles some eggs in a pan. “Sure did.”

“Allura, what the _fuck_. I could have been like… Robbed or… Or kidnapped or…”

“Keith, I tried to wake you up. Do you know what you did when I tried?” 

Keith shrugs. 

“You put your hand on my face and then you pushed me away with your foot. You said ‘Get out of my room it’s President’s Day I don’t have school’ and then you _kicked me_.”

Keith stammers. He knows he reeks of beer and sweat and regret so he just stands there with his palms stretched to his sides and his eyes open. 

“You could’ve tried a little harder maybe? Geez.” His voice is high and whiny, he knows, but by god that’s the only thing he can manage when it feels like his head’s been filled with cement. 

Allura shrugs. 

“What time is…” Keith looks at his dying phone and almost drops it on the floor. He just exclaims a series of shits and fucks and goes into the bathroom as fast as his extremely dehydrated body will take him, and on his way he hears Allura snort. He’s gonna get back at her for this, but he will have to concoct a plan to execute his revenge some other time, when he’s not taking a rushed shower because he’s a half hour late for work at the farmers’ market. 

The warm water hits his face and his body and it’s so relieving he feels like just passing out where he stands and sleeping for an hour or eight. He’s not exactly washing himself. It’s more like a soaking process. Instead of washing away whatever stupid thing he said last night—and boy is he sure he said some stupid shit—the shower seems to be clearing up all those blurs. Did he really call Hunk hot? Did he really, in his stupid, drunken stupor just go ahead and say Hunk was really hot? Did he fucking _lie on top of Hunk_ like the poor guy was a sexy pillow or did he just _wish_ he had? 

Allura interrupts his manageable crisis with a knock on the bathroom door. She speaks loud enough to be heard above the water hitting the tiles and she sounds so pleased with herself it almost annoys Keith.

“So you had a great time last night, huh?” she says. 

He grunts. 

“I like this guy, Hunk. He’s very nice.”

He grunts again. 

“I heard something very interesting, you know?”

He doesn’t reply. Not a peep. And because Allura can read him like a book, even when he’s silent behind a door, she just continues talking. 

“I think you should text him good morning or something. Something tells me he’d appreciate that.”

Keith opens the bathroom door with a towel around his waist and his hair dripping everywhere, and he finds Allura leaning against the wall, looking at her perfectly manicured fingernails and smirking almost devilishly. 

“What did you hear?” Keith manages to grunt. 

Allura shrugs. “Don’t you remember? He thinks you have pretty eyes.”

Keith’s stomach drops. He does not remember this. He thinks he would remember this even if he had drank three bottles of tequila by himself, which kind of feels like he did, but nevertheless, he’s sure he wouldn’t just forget about that. 

“That’s a pretty flirty thing to tell someone, if you ask me, but you should think about it on your way to work.”

Keith doesn’t say anything. There’s just a strange sound like a dying cat coming out of his throat as he walks away from her and into his room to put his clothes on. It’s a little bit of a struggle but he manages; when he comes back out, Allura is eating her breakfast at the dining room table and has a glass of water next to her glass of orange juice. 

“Drink that.”

Keith whines, but he does. So maybe he won’t conduct acts of petty revenge against her for leaving him in the car for a few hours. His head is too heavy and fuzzy to process what she said outside the bathroom, but he’s sure it will come back to him at some point during the day, and maybe by then he’ll be home and able to talk it out with her face to face because a very distant, very quiet part of him is pretty much having a meltdown. 

“Can I borrow your portable charger?” Keith asks, and Allura just hands it over as she eats her breakfast and reads. 

Before he leaves, he musses Allura’s hair a little bit and gives the top of her head a kiss. 

“See ya.”

“Take care,” Allura waves, her mouth full of eggs and bacon, barely looking up from the book she’s reading. 

Keith zips up his hoodie and pulls the hood up over his head on the way to the market as a desperate attempt to isolate his sensitive ears from the relentless and tortuous sounds of the world, like chirping birds and little bells on bikes and people chuckling and shit. He turns his phone on only to find approximately 794 texts from Kolivan asking where he is, two from his mom, and none from Hunk. (Not that he was actually _expecting_ them, he just figured they’d be nice.) He doesn’t even bother reading any of them. He just continues his stoic walk of shame through the market up to Kolivan’s stand and starts to prepare an explanation for his tardiness inside his head. 

When he gets there, Kolivan looks up with a frown and gives him a hard stare that really says it all, and he goes back to what he was doing. 

“Seems you’re okay,” is all he says, like he was speaking to the donuts on display. 

“Yeah. I’m sorry I’m late I just had a crazy night—”

“You don’t have to explain. Just let me know the next time you’re running over _an hour_ late.”

Keith feels like he should be saluting him and saying “Yes sir,” but instead he just nods and whispers “Okay.”

The morning crowd on a Saturday is pretty okay, in Keith’s opinion. He’s glad no one stops to make small talk or corny jokes or anything and he just hands them their donuts or their cider or their caramel apples and counts the change; it’s pretty easygoing and usually he’d spend his time zoning out to think about some school stuff or some homework or whatever, but of course, his hungover brain today decides it’s time to clumsily try to recreate the events of the previous night. He knows he got to the party and went straight for the booze, he knows Lance was acting weird (or maybe not, how the hell can he know) and fell in love with Allura, he knows Hunk was looking like a snack in that vest, and his certain knowledge pretty much stops there. He remembers falling into some bushes, mostly because there’s something in his lower back that feels remarkably like an itchy scratch, and he remembers some bits and pieces of a conversation while they played beer pong. And he knows he was fucking wasted beyond reason because why the hell would he play beer pong? Then, of course, it’s time for Allura’s words to sneak into his brain and overtake it. 

Pretty eyes. He doesn’t remember that at all. But even if that was true, it doesn’t really mean anything, at least not to him; Keith is as gay as… well, making out with an off-duty drag queen in a gay club covered in glitter during Pride weekend with a rainbow feather boa wrapped around his neck, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t snuggled up to Allura or another girl friend and told them they were cute or had nice hair or deserved better partners. So he’s convinced it’s really nothing, and he manages to stay convinced it’s really nothing for a full ten minutes before his brain starts going at it again. 

He unlocks his phone during a noon lull at the market and stares at his conversation with Hunk. Frowning and studying it and humming low under his breath, and apparently focused so much on it that he doesn’t notice Kolivan standing up behind him until the man speaks and scares the crap out of him. 

“Keith.”

Keith’s phone bounces in his hands and he clumsily and hurriedly locks the screen before asking Kolivan what he needs. He doubts Kolivan even bothered to look at his screen, but the scare is still there. 

“Can you get me some sugar?”

Nodding, he stands up immediately and crawls under the table to look for one of the containers where they keep the sugar, and he struggles a little because Kolivan tends to just dump everything down there and has no sense of organization whatsoever, but of course Keith is just a 22 year old college student, a _child_ who can’t tell a grown man how to run his business, so he crawls and pokes and pulls at containers and bags and vaguely hears Kolivan making small talk with some customer above his head. When he finally finds the powdered sugar, Keith stands up with the intention of putting it back on the table next to the fryer. But of course, fate is cruel. He looks up and Hunk is right there. Right in front of his stand. Talking to Kolivan about some thing from California he can’t even register because his heart is racing a thousand miles per hour and is being really, really damn loud in his ears, which he’s sure immediately turn red, and his palms are sweating. 

And it’s like the stupid way he stares is a loud siren, or maybe it’s the way he drops the sugar container on the table because it almost slipped off his hands, but whatever the reason, Hunk turns to look at him, and although he smiles, Keith can’t help but notice that he looks a little hesitant for a second. 

“Keith!” Hunk says, though, and takes a little step to the side to pat his shoulder since the table stands in the way of his bro-hug. “Hey, buddy, I didn’t know you worked here! It’s nice to see you!”

“Y-yeah. Yeah. I do. Work here. On the weekends. With my—with Kolivan. He’s a family friend,” Keith wishes the earth could just swallow him. 

“That’s cool,” Hunk smiles.

It’s hard to look away from Hunk when his hair is a little disheveled and the sleeves of his denim jacket are rolled back and he’s wearing a white shirt and there’s a tiny handful of chest hair peeking under it, but Keith manages to do it for a second, and when he does, he sees Kolivan behind Hunk, hiding a smile by sucking his lips in. And then Kolivan clears his throat and comes up with some excuse about how he left something in the truck and says “Nice meeting you” to Hunk and just leaves Keith there to die alone. 

“So, donuts, huh?” Hunk says and takes a small step closer to the table to look closely at the little things. “That’s funny, I didn’t peg you for someone with a sweet tooth.”

“No, I do—I do like, like, sweet stuff, like, not all the time obviously but it’s fine, you know, it’s good sometimes like, like cake on your birthday or whatever, you know? Or ice cream and a movie? It’s fine. I do like it. You know?” Keith can’t control the nonsense pouring out his lips like an endless supply of liquid stupidity, and he clears his throat when Hunk chuckles and then he absentmindedly pokes at a small hole in the fabric covering the table. “It’s Kolivan’s stand, I just help. I don’t really make anything.”

“Big guy,” Hunk says as he makes a gesture with his arm above his head, because that’s one of the two things anyone who’s ever met Kolivan has said. ‘Big’ or ‘scary.’

Keith nods with a forced, sucked-in, almost painful smile on his lips.

“So, what… brings you to the farmers’ market?” he asks, feeling the awkwardness seeping out of him like sweat from his forehead.

Hunk shrugs. He has a way of pulling Keith out of his self-loathing wells and his self-doubt with just a little gesture or a smile or a tone in his voice that Keith hadn’t really noticed until the noise in his head goes quiet, just watching Hunk move his hand and say “Eeeeh…”

Before he knows it, Keith’s smiling. A real smile. Not the painful, plastic one.

“I don’t know, man, I’m just… A little hungover, I guess? I figured I could come and get some fruit or vegetables and cook something good for that.”

Keith chuckles. “God, tell me about it, I woke up just about ready to chew my own head off. In the car, by the way.”

Hunk laughs loud and it makes Keith’s heart do that stupid fluttery thing it does every time he pulls that sound out of Hunk. “What?”

“I woke up in the car!” Keith explains, indignant, his voice maybe a little high but it adds to the drama of it all, he thinks. “Allura just went and left me passed out in the car.”

“She didn’t wanna carry you? Not bridal style? Not even a piggyback ride?”

“No!”

“Man, that’s real fucked up, Keith. I wou—I woke up in my own bed, at least.”

Keith shakes his head and laughs a little. They manage to avoid the “Pretty eyes” comment, though of course Keith isn’t sure Hunk is actually _avoiding_ it, since he’s not even certain that that’s a thing that happened. They talk about beer pong and their wounded dignity, all while Hunk rests an arm on the table and leans a little into Keith’s side of it, and Keith, like a magnet, leans into Hunk’s space as well. Smiling his stupid dopey smile recalling drunken rambles from the girls and horrible songs that were played.

“I meant to tell you about last night,” Hunk says, suddenly a little serious, and Keith’s heart drops for a second. “I was gonna wait and like, tell you in class or text you but I ran into you here so I might as well, right?”

Keith swallows and frowns just slightly. He nods and manages to get a quiet “Mmhm” out of his throat. He’s scared Hunk will say something like, “Can you not tell me how hot I am again? That’s weird,” or “Can you not lie on me again? That’s _super_ weird,” so Keith is bracing himself for impact and trying to play it cool.

“You know Lance _did not_ stop talking about Allura the rest of the night? I woke up to him standing over me like a fucking demon just ready to beg me to ask you about her. It’s hilarious.”

Keith laughs in relief. He figured something like that would happen. “Did he? I’m pretty sure she told him about her boyfriend, though.”

Hunk nods and looks defeated. Maybe a little embarrassed, too. “Yeah. He’s still… like, under a spell, Keith, it’s so weird. I think he just wants to know if she liked him or something.”

“I don’t know that,” Keith shrugs. “But I’m gonna go with ‘probably not’ if we’re being honest.”

Hunk snorts. “Yeah. It’s so funny though. I’ve known him for a couple months, right? Like when I first moved here. And I remember this one time—”

A tall lady stands next to Hunk and clears her throat. She apologizes for interrupting and says hello to Keith, very politely, before she orders a cup of mulled cider. Keith says “Coming right up,” and gets one of the cups and starts pouring the cider in it. He’s suddenly very aware of his every motion, just knowing Hunk is standing right there, even though realistically Hunk has no reason to be watching him do his job.

“What happened that one time?” Keith asks.

“Well, okay, so he liked this girl and I kinda had a crush on her bro—” Hunk stops and eyes the lady, very unsure, and as he does, the power of that one syllable alone makes Keith spill a bit of the stupid-hot cider on his hand.

“Oh shi—” Keith exclaims, and sets the cup down, because in giving his hand what feels like a second degree burn (but in all likeliness will only make his skin look a little red), he managed to spill about a third of it on the tablecloth. “I’m so sorry, ma’am, let me… Let me just get you another one,” he says. He hurries to wipe the cider off the table with a rag, and in the process looks up at Hunk for a split second: he’s got a hand behind his neck and is pointedly looking away, and he looks like he’s holding his breath, chewing on his bottom lip a little bit.

He wonders if Hunk’s face feels as hot as his own ears, which is to say, more scalding than the damn cider he spilled. Soon enough, he pours the lady a new cup, and out the corner of his eye, he can see Hunk stuff his hands in his pants’ pockets, still choosing to look away from the stand as if the market was the most fascinating thing he’d ever seen.

The lady asks about the donuts, says they look delicious or something, and Keith hands her one along with her cider. “Come again,” he says as he takes her exact change, and feels pretty stupid.

Hunk clears his throat. “Hey, you okay?” he asks, pointing at Keith’s hand with his chin.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. Not the first time that’s happened,” Keith frowns and shrugs and huffs to make light of how much it stings and how red his skin is actually getting. He clears his throat and presses the dirty rag against his hand, in hopes that it’s cooled off enough to be relieving, but it’s not. Still, he goes on pretending everything is cool. So to speak. “So what—what happened? With him?”

Hunk makes a dismissive hand gesture and kinda shrugs, kinda scrunches his face a little. “Ah, nothing, he’s just a pain when he likes a girl. You know how it is.”

“Oh,” Keith nods. “Yeah. Sure. I can… Imagine.” He can’t, in all seriousness, imagine it, so he just keeps pressing the rag against his hand. 

“You sure you’re okay there, buddy?” Hunk points at his hand again.

“Oh, yeah, totally.”

Hunk smiles. Keith smiles. First at each other and then in opposite vague directions before turning to each other and smiling again. Keith can really feel something—or a couple of very specific ‘somethings’—hanging unsaid between them, as strong as the smell of clove and cinnamon coming from the cider, but he’s not about to bring any of them up, and by the looks of it, neither is Hunk.

“Hey,” Keith says, at the same time Hunk says “Hey.”

Hunk chuckles and lets Keith speak first.

“Do you want this cup?” he points at the cup he spilled.

“Oh. Oh, yeah, sure. How much is it?” Hunk looks a little like Keith caught him off-guard. There’s been a few times Keith had wished he could read minds, like when he was 13 and Krolia teased him about getting his Christmas present early but he’d have to wait to actually see it. Now’s one of those times. He’d really offer his life to know what’s hiding behind Hunk’s sudden and strange awkwardness.

“Stop, it’s on the house,” Keith says, and fills the cup properly. He wipes it dry with a clean rag and places the lid on top, and before he hands it to Hunk, he grabs a couple of donuts in a napkin and hands them over as well. When he sees Hunk start to reach into his back pocket for his wallet, Keith laughs. “Hunk, come on. Just take them.”

“Alright,” Hunk smiles and looks almost… _Bashful._ It makes Keith want to grab his jacket and kiss him, just… Reach across the table and plant one right on his handsome face. He hopes this impulse will eventually just die, prevalent as it is every time Hunk does something endearing or sweet or sexy, like walking around and breathing. “Thanks, buddy.”

“Anytime.”

“I should get going. I have Lance being… Himself at home,” Hunk says, and lifts the cup in Keith’s direction.

“Come again,” Keith says with the fakest customer service voice he can muster.

It makes Hunk chuckle. “I can’t wait, this smells amazing. I’ll see you around, bud.”

Keith does some kind of weird salute putting his fingers on his temple and nodding. He feels stupid as his arm moves, but Hunk does the same, and then he walks away. Keith lets out a deep breath, and shakes his hand as he mutters curses. It looks a little redder, and it stings, and he’s sure the dirty rag he’s pressed against it hasn’t done shit to help him. But he’s fine. His day is better than he thought it would be already, even as Kolivan returns with a large container of dough and laughs under his breath the second he sees Keith.

“Of course, that’s coming out of your pay,” is all Kolivan says, but Keith can feel a lot beneath it. 

“Yup. Of course.”

*****

Keith likes to help Allura study sometimes. The times he doesn’t it’s because the texts she’s reading are a tad above his level, just a tad, like they are that night. Still, he gives it his best, asking her practice quiz questions and then questions of his own. He’s learnt over time that Allura seems to learn best when she has to explain her study subjects to someone who’s not entirely familiar with them. He is convinced that she’d be an amazing teacher. She’s sitting cross legged on the floor across from him, a chunk of her hair pinned back so it doesn’t fall on her forehead, a deep frown on her face, her reading glasses on, and a pen hanging between her lips. 

“I’m done,” she sentences all of a sudden and slams the book on her lap shut. “I’m done. My brain is mush. I can’t do this anymore.”

“A-are you sure? There’s still—”

“Yes, I’m sure. I’m gonna make some tea and go to bed. Do you want some?” she asks when she’s halfway to the kitchen. 

“No, I’m fine. Thanks.”

Keith stands up and stretches his back, rubs his belly and checks the time. He figures he should go to bed, too, since he’d like to actually be on time for work tomorrow. His text books sit on a table and they severely judge him when he walks into his room and turns on his laptop to watch something on Netflix, but he’s become immune to their disapproval. He kicks off his shoes and his jeans and starts to browse. Then his phone chimes. 

_hey bud. that mulled cider was great and the donuts? amazing. thank you. hows it going_

There’s the fluttery thing again. 

_Hey. I’m alright just trying to find something to watch. Nd you?_

_im watching a cooking show its great_

_Yeah?_

_oh yeah. man i love cooking shows. u wanna watch w me?_

Keith replies “Sure,” and as soon as Hunk reads it, his phone starts ringing. Keith’s heart skips a beat, but it calms down surprisingly fast for him to answer with a croaked “Hey.”

Hunk’s voice sounds good over the phone. It sounds good all the time, but Keith feels like it sounds particularly good right now. It’s soft and animated when Hunk tells him the name of the show so Keith can find it, and while he types, Hunk tells him everything he loves about it. How he’s learnt to cook amazing things and tips and all sorts of things about all sorts of cultures, and Keith can’t stop smiling. 

He doesn’t really stop smiling when they start watching, either, just hearing Hunk’s comments on the food like “That’s going to be way over salted” or “That looks so gross, it needs a lot more spices.” Soon, Hunk is talking about his love of cooking again. 

“So what’s the best thing you can cook?” Keith asks, lying lazily on his side with a dopey smile as the next episode buffers. 

“Wow,” Hunk says and then hums. Keith wonders if Hunk is lying down in his underwear as well, but he puts that thought aside just as fast as it comes to him. “There’s a few things, you know? I make a _killer_ mac and cheese. And a _very_ good sapasui.”

“A what?”

“Sapasui. My mom taught me.”

“Oh.”

“I take it you’ve never had it.”

“Nope.”

“Guess I’ll just have to make some for you, then,” Hunk says and Keith can tell by his tone that he’s smiling really wide. 

“Okay,” Keith says, and he wonders if one word can convey how absolutely flustered he is. 

And then they’re silent for a couple of minutes. Keith is very aware of his own breathing and of the soft whirring of his laptop; they both just kind of pressed pause on the show to talk without agreeing to. It just happened. Like many things just happen. There’s a lot he wants to ask Hunk and a lot he’d like to talk about. Like his family or that cryptic thing he said at the market (mainly that, if he’s being honest). So he takes a breath and just goes for it. 

“Hey, Hunk,” he says, and his heart hammers on and on in his ears. “What were you gonna say? Earlier? At the stand? Before the lady showed up?”

He’s a little afraid he’s gonna have to clarify and betray the fact that he’s been obsessing about a syllable all day. But being honest is important in a friendship, he thinks. They probably count as friends at this point. 

“Ah, nothing,” Hunk says almost dismissively. “It’s really nothing, it just felt weird talking about a guy next to a strange lady. You know?”

Keith almost stops breathing. Of course, he was pretty sure of it, but it’s good to have confirmation. Still, his face feels like it’s boiling and there’s a void in his belly, and he feels giddy with a weird kind of anxiety that he can’t explain. Maybe it was just easier to ignore his crush on Hunk when he thought he’d never have a chance because Hunk probably didn’t like guys. But that flies right out the window. 

“No, yeah, I totally get that.”

“Do you?” Hunk asks. 

“Yep. I don’t like to talk about… You know, _that_ when I’m around strangers,” Keith answers, because he knows what Hunk was really asking. 

“Oh, totally.”

There’s another short silence that Keith can’t quite decipher, and he’s about to start suffering in it when Hunk, again, mercifully saves him from it. 

“Let’s watch something else. What were you gonna watch before I interrupted you?”

“You didn’t interrupt me,” Keith says, a little sweet. “I was about to close Netflix and just watch conspiracy theory videos on YouTube.”

Hunk laughs, loud and musical in Keith’s ear. “Really?”

Keith tries his best to sound insulted. “Yes, really! They’re fun, Hunk!”

“But that’s all bullshit!”

“I know! That’s half the fun! Look, we’ll watch one and you’ll see,” Keith says, and then tells Hunk exactly what to type on the search bar to get to one of his favorite videos. 

Of course, Hunk laughs all the way through the video. He laughs at the dramatic music and the dramatic pauses and Keith is concerned Hunk’s going to pass out from laughing when the video _asserts_ with total and complete confidence that Bruce Willis _himself_ is being mind-controlled by the CIA. One hour later, they find out that so are Lady Gaga and Beyoncé. 

“How _dare_ they do this to Beyoncé,” Hunk exclaims in wild disbelief, catching his breath from laughing. “ _Beyoncé?!_ ”

Keith just keeps laughing. His stomach hurts from doing it almost nonstop, but he’s not complaining. Between really deep breaths, he tries to tell Hunk to shut the fuck up, but it all comes out in gibberish since he can barely speak. 

Before Keith knows it, there’s a very calm silence as he holds his phone to his ear, and a soft smile pulling at the corners of his lips. He doesn’t even realize how late it is until he hears Hunk stretch and yawn on the other side of the line. 

“God, Keith, it’s late,” he says, sounding surprised. 

“Yeah. I should—”

“You should watch one of these creepy Disney stars videos with me before we hit the sack.”

“Sure,” Keith beams. 

*****

He’s a little late for work the next morning, but he doesn’t even mind. He can’t stop smiling every time his phone chimes.


	5. September

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cookies and vandalism

**September 14th**

It’s a very nice day, to be fair. It’s sunny out and though the air is a little chilly it’s nothing that can’t be fixed by wearing a light jacket or even just a long sleeve shirt. The grass around them is green as ever, almost disturbingly so, in that plastic, fake-looking way it has of always being perfect. There’s clouds rolling lazily by, and Keith remembers for a second all the days he spent finding shapes in them as a kid. Right now they all just look like cotton candy, but then again, he is a little peckish. 

“I don’t know about you guys,” Hunk says, “but I feel like I would kill someone to be in a beach right now.”

They all agree. 

They’re lying on the grass next to one of the buildings: Keith, Allura, Pidge, and Hunk. Apparently, at some point during the party, Pidge and Allura hit it off so well that they exchanged phone numbers and have been texting and now they’re buddies. Keith thinks it’s cute because Allura seems a little protective of Pidge whenever she talks about her, and from what Hunk has told him, Pidge adopted Allura as some kind of role model. 

The four of them decided to meet up for a while in between classes; they all had a miraculous free hour at the same time and decided to hang out. Pidge and Allura ran off for a second to get ice cream, and Hunk used the opportunity to sit on the grass and lie on his back because he said he was exhausted. So, naturally, Keith just went ahead and did the same—at a safe distance, of course. 

“It’s cold,” Pidge complains. 

“You’re eating ice cream,” Allura points out, and Pidge just shrugs and lets her head rest on Hunk’s stomach. 

Keith is very jealous. He’s trying not to let it show. He zones out a little bit, just looking at the sky. Using his backpack as a pillow isn’t as uncomfortable as he would have guessed. Still, he wishes he was cuddled up to Hunk instead—not that Pidge is cuddling him, it’s just the immediate place his brain takes him to after he thinks of lying his head on Hunk’s belly. And then his brain runs over some reasons why he’d do that. Like cuddling after making out. Cuddling after having sex. Cuddling after making out after having sex. He frowns and lets out a really, really deep sigh, and crosses his arms over his chest, trying to will all these images away. He doesn’t wanna keep wondering how soft Hunk’s lips would be or how his hands would feel around his waist. It’s weird to be thinking that while his friends are going over dinner plans right next to him. 

“Oh, you guys should totally come over,” Hunk says and sits up. “Like, wow, it’d be great.”

“We should!” Allura exclaims and nudges Keith’s side. “You don’t have anything going on tonight, do you?”

“Uh. No.”

“Perfect. Keith, you’ll finally get to try my food!”

“Yeah!” he says with his heart caught in his throat. “Yeah, yeah, that sounds great.”

“Perfect,” Hunk lies back down and puts his hands behind his head. 

Allura lies down next to Keith, and next to her, Pidge goes back to resting her head on Hunk’s belly. Keith’s jealous again, but he looks back up at the cotton candy clouds, and he actually feels okay. 

*****

The apartment Hunk shares with Lance is tiny, even smaller than the one Keith shares with Allura. Their dining room consists of one table and four mismatched chairs. There’s a flat screen TV on top of two short bookshelves, and a DVD player, and two gaming consoles Keith doesn’t bother trying to tell apart, and there’s assorted bookshelves all over the walls; the living room consists of one navy blue loveseat and one burgundy chair, and the whole place smells delicious. Before Keith tries the food, he knows he’ll love it—not because it’s Hunk’s, really, but because of its smell. 

Allura and Pidge are talking in the living room while Keith goes over to the kitchen with Hunk to help him get the girls some beer. He peeks over at the pans and pots while Hunk actually gets the beer bottles from the fridge, and he stares at the food inside them until Hunk softly bumps his side with his elbow. 

“That look good?” he asks, smiling. 

Keith looks like he got caught with his hands in the cookie jar. “Very good.”

“It is,” Hunk says, winks, and hands Keith two beer bottles. 

“What is this?” Keith asks, and Hunk takes the transparent lid off so Keith can fully appreciate it. He opens his mouth to speak, but then they both hear Lance. 

“Hey, Allura, I didn’t know you were coming!” is what they hear, loudly, and they both turn to look at each other before rolling their eyes and laughing as quietly as they can. 

“Guess we’re gonna need another one of these,” Hunk says, defeated, and gets another bottle from the fridge. 

Naturally, Lance is next to Allura when they go back out, and Pidge really could not look more done with him if she tried. Lance is telling her he’s so glad his class got canceled, that he’s missed her, that he’s just so happy to see her. Keith can tell he’s being sincere, just like Allura can, because she smiles a silly smile and only rolls her eyes a little bit when he pulls out the chair for her. Keith wonders for a second if _he’s_ that painfully transparent too. 

The sitting arrangements look like they’re going to end in Lance saying he and Allura should share one of those mismatched chairs after Hunk’s brought out the plates with food, but Hunk pulls the loveseat closer to the table and pats one of the cushions. 

“Come with me, Keith, we’ll sit here,” he says, and, well, what is Keith supposed to do? 

He eats this fish cooked in coconut milk and drinks his beer and feels his thigh brushing against Hunk’s, and he laughs along with them, and after an hour or so he realizes his heart doesn’t do the uncontrollably fluttery thing anymore, not to the point of anxiety. It just beats. It just feels at peace. 

*****

**September 27th**

_Hunk are you up_

Keith waits for his phone to chime with a reply. He’s in his room, at the foot of his bed where Allura fell asleep. He covered her with a blanket after she went to sleep, because he had never seen her cry, not like this. She didn’t wanna say much after she got home a little past ten, absolutely fuming; when Keith asked what happened, she just said, simply, “I’m _done_ with that asshole.”

The asshole was, of course, her now ex boyfriend Lotor, and after Keith waited for her to feel like talking, he listened to her explaining what happened. Or something almost like it. What he understood as she drank the tea he made her and she cried and babbled and he rubbed her back, was that he was a lying, stupid, evil manipulator and that she never should have given him the time of day. She said that she should have known after an ugly fight he had with his ex-turned-best-friend, she said she should have trusted her instincts. She said she “should have trusted people when they show me their true colors.”

Keith didn’t wanna pry. Right now, at 2:00 in the morning on a Thursday night, all he wanted to do was go to Lotor’s stupid goth dungeon and kick his ass. 

_what happened buddy are you alright?_

Keith types out his reply, explaining what happened and peppering about ten thousand insults into every sentence. 

_jesus. dude that’s so fucked up_

_Yeah I kinda wanna fucking kill him ngl_

_do you know where this dude lives?_

_Yeah_

_come pick me up_

_Hunk wtf I don’t actually want to kill him?_

_relax bud just come get me_

Shrugging, Keith types out and sends an “ok.” He doesn’t even bother pretending he wouldn’t do anything Hunk asked him to, and so he leaves a note for Allura on his bedside table and grabs her car keys, drives about ten minutes and pulls out his phone to call Hunk and tell him he’s outside his apartment. But when he looks up, he sees him standing outside the building with his hands tucked in his pockets. A little suspicious, Keith flashes his headlights and scoots over to open the door so Hunk can get in. 

Hunk rubs his hands together and buckles his seatbelt, and he doesn’t really say hello or explain why Keith is out here at this time. 

“So…” Keith says, his hands on the wheel. 

“Go on, let’s go to the vampire’s den,” Hunk says. 

“What are we doing?” Keith’s already started to drive, so no matter the answer he’s gonna take Hunk there. It’s just professional curiosity at this point. 

“Don’t worry, buddy, _you’re_ not doing anything,” Hunk says in a cryptic way Keith’s never heard before, and it’s both a little unsettling and a little exciting, but mostly, it’s pretty late and he’s pretty tired and he’s not thinking straight. 

Keith stops at a red light and goes through his phone to find Lotor’s address. 

“That’s awful what happened, man,” Hunk says. 

“Yeah, she was in pretty bad shape.”

“But she’s gonna be okay. We’ll make sure.”

Keith smiles. 

“Were they together a long time?” Hunk asks. 

“Kind of, yeah,” Keith says because he doesn’t remember if it’s been a year or a year and a half or what, but he knows the kind of damage someone can cause a person in an even shorter amount of time. So what does it matter, really? 

“Bad breakups are the worst, man. I’ve been lucky I’m mostly friendly with people I’ve dated and such but, you know, I’ve seen some real messy ones.”

“Mmhm,” Keith’s fingers tighten a little around the steering wheel—it’s not really a conversation he wants to have right now, or ever, and he’s not stupid, he knows it’s headed right where he doesn’t want it to be. That place that starts with “Ass” and ends with “Clown.” So he thinks he should start coming up with something vague or a lie about how he’s totally great friends with his ex boyfriends and his ex almost-boyfriends and his ex fuckbuddies and get it over with. But he can’t. 

“I’m really glad I’ve never had one, you know?”

Keith swallows as discreetly as he can, and drives around a street corner. “Uh. Yeah. I have. Just the one. It was pretty bad. This guy—”

“Hey, no, man, you don’t have to tell me,” Hunk says with a soft voice and raises his hands. “Really, I get it.”

Keith turns a little bit to smile at him and drives for another minute before he spots Lotor’s car parked out on the street. He looks at Hunk with a suspicious eyebrow lifted and just says, “We’re here. What are we doing?”

“Nothing huge, really. I’m just gonna go key his car. Which one is it?” he asks when he’s halfway out the door. 

“ _Hunk!_ ” Keith gets out of the car and goes after him. He thinks about stopping him for a second, and then he remembers the look on Allura’s face, so he points out at the big, red Chevrolet parked next to a bush. It’s not the worst thing he could do to that remastered Nosferatu reject, if he’s being honest. 

Hunk smiles almost devilishly. Keith would lie if he said he wasn’t into it, if he said he wasn’t feeling great about the thrill and about seeing a whole new side of Hunk. He can’t stop himself from feeling giddy as they approach the car, and as Hunk pulls out his keys, he feels a rush of blood to the head. 

“Hurry!” he says in a hushed voice. 

“Fine, fine,” Hunk replies on the other side of the car and starts to drag his key along the entire side of it. 

Keith’s laughing before he realizes that Hunk is too. 

“You wanna try it? It kinda feels good,” Hunk hands Keith his keys when he meets him next to the trunk. 

Keith feels like sparks fly a little bit when their hands brush together, but he blames it on delinquent adrenaline. He shrugs and scratches a line all along the other side of Lotor’s car. When he’s done, Hunk’s standing next to him. The street is lonely and quiet, and the air is chilly, and the single streetlamp shines a warm, soft light on Hunk. And god, Keith really wants to kiss him. Hunk stands even closer to him after they take—or bounce—a few steps away from the car, he’s catching his breath from laughing, and he puts his hand on Keith’s shoulder. He gives it a soft squeeze and Keith stops breathing for a second. He turns to look at Hunk and he’s smiling. He’s quite taller than Keith and it makes him feel like it’s the first time he’s actually noticing it. The pretty, deep brown of Hunk’s eyes is locked in his, and his heart is pounding, and he swears there’s _something_ in the shades of brown and he _swears_ Hunk is about to lean into him when a light goes on inside an apartment on the ground floor, right next to them. 

“Shit!” Hunk yelps and grabs Keith’s hand to pull him and run back towards Allura’s car. 

Hurried and clumsy, they get in the car and Keith starts the engine and backs out of the street pretty irresponsibly, for the sake of not driving in front of the apartment building. They’re both still laughing, and Keith can feel his heart pounding. He didn’t think he would continue to commit acts of vandalism after leaving high school, and yet here he is. And he’s _happy_ about it. It’s for a good cause, he tells himself. A good and petty cause. 

“Do you know what would cheer her up?” Hunk asks when Keith is almost halfway back to Hunk’s apartment. 

“Hm? What?”

“Cookies.”

Keith laughs. “What?”

“Yeah, man! My cookies have healing properties, I swear.”

“Hunk, it’s like… Past three in the morning.”

“Yeah, I know. Isn’t there a 24-hour supermarket around here?”

Keith stares at him for maybe three seconds longer than any driving instructor would recommend, and in the end, he just frowns as he smiles, and shakes his head, and takes a turn left to head to the supermarket. Because of course he does. 

In the aisles with that strange white light at three in the morning, it shocks Keith to realize how little he knows of his own kitchen beyond cereal and cereal bowls and the coffee maker. “I don’t think we have flour and we _definitely_ don’t have vanilla extract,” he says. Just in case, Hunk goes ahead and puts everything he’ll need in the shopping cart, and he pushes it around like he was taking a walk in the park at noon, talking and joking and melting Keith’s heart like butter. 

They get back to Keith’s apartment at four and Hunk walks quietly into the kitchen, asks Keith to come in too, and closes the door. He puts an apron on and goes to wash his hands while Keith leans against the door with his arms crossed and a dopey smile on his face that doesn’t last very long. 

“Nope, you’re not just gonna stand there, come here and help me,” Hunk says, opening the plastic bags and looking for a bowl in the cabinets. 

“I’ve never baked anything,” Keith whines a little. 

“Well,” Hunk says, smug, and hands Keith a bright red bowl and a wooden spoon, “you won’t be able to say that after tonight.”

Keith rolls his eyes, but soon he’s having the time of his life. They’re both speaking in hushed voices and trying to make as little noise as possible, although Hunk laughs a little louder when Keith struggles to turn on the oven since it’s obvious he’s maybe done it twice. Hunk gives him the task, later, of mixing the chocolate chips into the dough, and while Keith is focused on his very important mission and moving the spoon in any way he can, he feels Hunk standing right behind him and his hand wrapping around his wrist. 

“Go like this,” Hunk practically whispers and guides Keith’s hand in a softer, more circular motion. 

Keith’s heart is about to jump right out of his chest. Hunk is touching his wrist almost tenderly and he can feel his warmth behind him and his breath in that sweet spot between his neck and his shoulder; he can feel his face turn bright red and if he doesn’t start thinking about something horrible he knows he’s gonna get hard. He swallows and nods through a pained and tight-lipped “Mhmm,” and just about loses his mind when Hunk squeezes his elbow and steps away. It felt like he was pressed against his back for hours, or at least long enough for Keith’s brain to come up with a very filthy scenario that involved the counter and the cookies getting burnt to a crisp. Keith doesn’t even focus on the dough anymore. He’s not even sure how he helps Hunk place the little mounds of dough on the tray, but he does know he lets out a couple of stupid giggles when their hands brush together every now and then. 

They decide to sit in the living room while the cookies are in the oven, and Hunk sits awfully close to Keith on a loveseat. Their thighs are squeezed together and Hunk gives his knee a little pat that has the same energy as his enthusiastic bro-hugs, but that’s apparently enough for Keith to cross his legs and smile and pretend he doesn’t have a situation in his pants. 

“Thanks for doing this,” he says, to try and distract himself, but also because it’s the right time. “You really didn’t have to.”

“Oh, of course, buddy. You’re my—you know, you’re both my friends. I want you guys to be okay.” He smiles and stretches his arms on the back of the chair, one exactly behind Keith’s neck, so close that if he wanted to touch Keith he’d really just have to lightly move his thumb an inch. Less than an inch. 

Hunk’s eyes are soft when Keith looks into them, and he guesses his are, too. It’s the second time that night that he feels he can tell that Hunk is thinking about leaning into him, and it’s just as strangely anxiety-inducing as it was one or two hours before. Keith wants to melt into him. He wants those big arms of his around him and those soft-looking lips on his and that smooth hair twisted between his fingers, and it’s almost physically impossible to go on pretending like he doesn’t think about it every other second of every day. He just wants him. He doesn’t know how much longer he can go on pretending he doesn’t want him. 

He also doesn’t know how long they’ve been sitting there staring at each other’s faces in silence for no god damn reason, like they’re trying to communicate telepathically. 

“What’s going on?” Allura asks, standing right outside the kitchen looking into the living room, rubbing her eyes. 

Keith practically jumps away from Hunk and rushes over to her. He apologizes for waking her up, says he just called Hunk and they decided to bake her cookies to help cheer her up, that they’ll be ready in just a second, and does she need anything, and is she okay? Allura looks at him with a frown, very quiet and with a judgmental look Keith knows all too well. But she doesn’t have much time to talk. 

Hunk walks over to her and gives her a tight hug. “We’re here for you, okay? Whatever you need.”

Allura’s pretty eyes well up with tears and she returns Hunk’s hug. She then grabs Keith and pulls him into it, too, and squeezes the life out of them both. 

“Thank you,” she whispers. “I love you, guys.”

Hunk and Keith sit her down on the couch, and Hunk goes to pull the cookies out of the oven while Keith goes to get her a blanket. The apartment had never smelled this good, Keith is sure, and it feels homey and safe and comforting, and he hopes Allura feels it, too. 

The three of them end up eating heavenly cookies, squeezed together under a blanket with Allura in the middle and Keith’s ass hanging off the arm of the couch, but he thinks it’s perfect. They talk for a while, and Allura is the first to start drifting off to sleep. 

Keith, of course, decides not to mention anything about Lotor’s car.


	6. October

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gayer than ever (so far)

**October 1st**

Hunk misses class that day. Keith sits at what is now _their_ table and rests his chin on his hand when class starts. He looks at the door insistently, because if anyone is ever late for class, it’s always him. So he checks the time on his phone screen: five minutes late, eight minutes late, fifteen minutes late, definitely-not-showing-up-today late. He’s bummed, but he’s also a little worried. So of course, instead of writing his notes as thoroughly as he should, he discreetly pulls out his phone and types out a message asking Hunk if he’s okay. 

A few seconds later, the reply flashes on his screen. 

_god im dying buddy. im so sick i cant even get out of bed_

Keith feels his face twist into what can only be described as a puppy-like pout, and he tries to think of something to say that isn’t a generic “Oh, hope you feel better!” or a stupid “Man, that sucks.”

_You’re missing one really awesome class pal I’m sad for you_

Keith smiles when Hunk replies with a skull emoji. 

_I’m telling you bud I’ve only dozed off nine times she’s on fire today_

Hunk replies with an LMAO and they manage to exchange a few more texts during the rest of the class. He’s sick with a cold, and he’s sure it’s nothing big, he’s sure he’ll be fine in a couple of days after he’s rested enough and drank enough fluids and whatever. So Keith goes home after class and marches straight into the kitchen, determined to make Hunk enough chicken noodle soup to lift his spirits and sustain him through this terrible illness. Now, Keith’s not really sure what possessed him to do this. He’s chopping carrots and frowning and seasoning broth still frowning because it’s an instinct he can’t explain. Deep down, he thinks he just wants Hunk to be cared for. There’s no ulterior motive. He doesn’t expect Hunk to fall into his arms and confess his undying love and kiss him in the rain, nice as that would be; he just imagined Hunk lying in his bed with a fever while Lance goes out to his classes, all alone, with no one to pamper him and bring him soup and watch funny videos with, and it broke his heart. Keith thinks Hunk wasn’t even upset about that, he is in fact _sure_ that Hunk doesn’t give a fuck about being sick by himself because he’s an adult and that’s just part of life, but Keith can remember many times he was ill and homesick and wished for some company. So maybe he’s projecting a little, but he thinks Hunk deserves some pampering anyway, and he’s… Not the _wrong_ person for the job. 

He gets off the bus a street away from Hunk’s apartment and is quite pleased with himself when he sees the container in his hands is pretty much intact. Not a drop spilled. He pushes the button for Hunk’s intercom and waits until his poor, raspy, painful-sounding voice asks who it is. 

“It’s me, your delivery nurse.”

He walks up the stairs and Hunk opens the door in a pair of cozy-looking slippers, banana-print pajama bottoms and a blue robe wrapped around himself, his hair sticking out in six different directions and his eyes a little swollen. He gives Keith a tired, sleepy smile and asks him to come in after greeting him with the softest “Hey, buddy!” he’s ever heard. It makes Keith want to squeeze him until he’s healed. He thinks he’d kiss Hunk’s sick and germ-filled face all day long and wouldn’t give a shit. 

“Why’d you come all the way here, I’m _find_!” Hunk says. 

“Yep, you sure sound ‘find,’ Hunk,” Keith says and makes his way into the kitchen without further invitation, Hunk trailing close behind him. 

“Whatcha got there, buddy,” Hunk asks, leaning over Keith’s shoulder while he takes off the lid. 

“Soup.”

“Aw, Keith, you bought me soup?” Hunk teases. 

“No, I _made you_ soup,” Keith says, miraculously without blushing or stammering. 

He’s expecting a smart reply from Hunk, a lighthearted joke or a snort or a little chuckle, but there’s nothing. He turns around to get it to the microwave and Hunk is just looking at him. With a little smile on his face that Keith will choose to blame on cough syrup or cough drops or heavy duty painkillers or whatever it is Hunk’s been taking. Because it’s soft and bright and sweet and it makes his heart race. 

“What?” Keith whispers after long seconds. 

“Nothing,” Hunk coughs. He shakes his head a little and waves his hand like he’s swatting away an unwanted idea buzzing around his head. “Nothing, just… Thanks, buddy.”

Keith smiles. “It’s no problem.”

He doesn’t know if the silence feels as calm and soft to Hunk as it does to him, or if it feels like a cozy place to be like it does to him. He doesn’t know if Hunk is looking at him with tender eyes because he’s feverish and he’d look like that at a cashier in a convenience store. Then, thankfully, the microwave beeps. 

“Come on, big guy, let’s get you comfy,” Keith says and touches Hunk’s shoulder to guide him out into the couch. 

“I mean, I _was_ comfy until you showed up,” Hunk laughs and then coughs, once he’s sat down. 

“Shut up,” Keith smirks and drapes the blanket over Hunk’s lap before he even realizes he’s doing it—it’s more of a reflex, really. So he clears his throat and rushes back into the kitchen to bring Hunk the soup, hands it over to him and just stands there. 

“Come sit here, man,” Hunk says just as Keith is about to turn on his heel and leave, patting the spot next to him on the couch. “I was watching a movie. You like horror movies, right? This one isn’t scary.”

“Uh, yeah, sure. I sure do,” he lies through his teeth, but doesn’t sit. 

“Come on, I’m not contagious,” Hunk says. “Probably.”

Keith wouldn’t care either way. 

Hunk starts the movie and eats a spoonful of soup. He was about half an hour into it when Keith showed up, apparently, and so Keith is a little lost but Hunk is quick to fill him in. 

“So there’s these two little girls, right? And they end up living by themselves in this creepy ass old cabin in the woods because their dad like, totally lost it, right? And when they finally find them they’re all messed up and their uncle takes them in. That’s the uncle’s girlfriend. She’s gorgeous, I love her.”

Keith nods and frowns with his arms crossed, manspreading to hide his reluctance. He didn’t know that was a coping mechanism, but he’ll take it, because those little girls are creepy as shit and he’s getting a little fidgety. Still, he stays quiet next to Hunk as they watch the movie and Hunk keeps eating his soup; Keith scooches a little closer, _not_ because he’s scared, but because he’s cold. At one point he yelps and almost jumps off the seat, but again, he’s not _scared,_ he’s just surprised. Hunk seems to be having a blast, going “OH!” and “Ah!” whenever something unsettling happens, while Keith continues to move closer to him at a snail pace. The scary demonic ghost or whatever that hideous thing is that is terrorizing Jessica Chastain crawls on the floor and yeah, maybe that’s a little more than Keith can take, so he just squeezes himself next to Hunk out of some strange survival instinct and feels him chuckle. 

“You okay there, buddy?”

“Yep,” Keith says, and just stops giving a fuck when the ghost starts chasing Jessica Chastain around: he wraps his arm around Hunk’s and squeezes it, and hides his face in Hunk’s big, safe, absolutely-not-haunted, warm shoulder. Maybe he’s cursing a little bit into the soft fabric of his robe, which makes Hunk cackle. 

“I can turn it off if you want, Keith,” Hunk offers, but shifts a little to better accommodate Keith like he was a cuddly kitten and not a scared grown man. 

“Nope, m’fine,” Keith says, his voice muffled. 

“I’m gonna get you sick.”

“I’ll risk it.”

“Alright,” Hunk laughs, and stretches his arm to wrap it around Keith’s shoulders. 

Instantly, Keith melts into Hunk’s side and snuggles up to him, half-hiding his face in his chest so he can easily turn away from the screen any second he wants to. As minutes go by, he starts to shrink: he pulls his knees up to his chest and squeezes himself closer, and Hunk starts to rub his arm (though laughing very loudly at him, because, hell, who wouldn’t).

“Keith, I have to tell you something,” Hunk says after a few minutes. 

“What.”

“Your soup’s really unseasoned.”

“What!” Keith forgets the fear for a second and pulls himself away and straightens up to look Hunk in the eye. 

“It is. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s not bad, I really appreciate it, buddy, but man… I gotta teach you how to season your food.”

Keith rolls his eyes and playfully punches Hunk’s shoulder. “I’m never making you anything again.”

“Aw, Keith, come on! I’m just giving you some constructive criticism, I loved your soup—”

“That’s fucking rude, Hunk,” Keith says, and shoves him a little, losing his balance and falling forward because he didn’t actually expect Hunk to move. Part of his brain is yelling at him to gather himself up and step away, but he can feel Hunk’s breath on his lips, and he’s close enough that he’s sure he could count every facial hair he has. His heart is pounding so hard he doesn’t even realize that his hand is resting on Hunk’s chest and that neither of them have attempted to move or apologize or speak, that Hunk’s hand is still around his arm or that the frantic beating Keith is feeling under his palm belongs to Hunk. He feels Hunk’s fingers squeeze his arm a little bit. He feels himself take a deep breath. 

Suddenly, Hunk turns away and covers his mouth to cough. Keith takes this as the perfect opportunity to move off and fix his damn self, see if he can will away the furious red of his face through sheer stubbornness. 

“God, sorry about that,” Hunk says, then he turns to look at Keith and smiles, soft and sweet. “Get back here, buddy, let’s finish the movie,” he says, and stretches out his arm with an inviting motion of his hand. 

Keith hesitates. 

“I’m sick, man, you gotta be nice to me.”

Keith rolls his eyes and goes back to that spot under Hunk’s arm, his head resting on his chest. He can feel Hunk’s thumb moving in idle, little lines along his arm, right below his shoulder, and he wants to say something, but his mind is blank. He’s just lost in the comfort of it, in being warm and feeling safe and not even caring about catching Hunk’s cold. He squeezes his fingers into Hunk’s robe when the jump scares happen and practically hides in him when the final scene takes place because that ghost has something that horrifies him. It makes Hunk chuckle every time, and he offers to turn it off or play a different movie, but Keith decided somewhere in his mind that he was gonna power through it, so he does. 

After, when Hunk asks if he wants to see another movie, Keith nods and says “Sure, why not.” It’s another scary movie, Hunk warns him, because he’s got a list of horror movies he’s never watched that he wants to finish before Halloween, as a little project. Keith says he can take it. Twenty minutes into it, Hunk falls asleep and snores very quietly. Keith relaxes into him, smiling, feeling like the luckiest man on earth for being here, and soon he falls asleep as well. 

*****

**October 2nd**

“I do not consider myself a judgmental person,” Allura says with an extremely serious tone over her coffee, “but this is just stupid,” she makes a gesture pointing at all of Keith sitting across the table from her. 

“What’s stupid?” Keith asks into his mug, knowing full well what she’s talking about. 

Allura waves her phone in his face: it’s a picture of him and Hunk taking a nap. They both passed out long enough for Lance to get home, apparently have a giggle fit that lasted three hours, snap the picture and send it to Pidge with the caption “look at these idiots,” which Pidge then sent to Allura. 

Keith makes a face and takes another sip of his coffee. “I just think it’s rude that you’re all gossiping like this.”

“We’re not gossiping, we just wanna know when one of you will finally pull his head out of his butt and make a move.” Allura explains, not sounding annoyed of course, but to Keith it feels pretty much like it. And no matter what she says, she _is_ a pretty judgmental person. 

“Keith, when even _Lance_ is talking about it—”

“I didn’t know you guys were all buddy-buddy now,” Keith says in his best little shit voice, because as well as Allura can read him, he has a pretty good grasp on how to make her derail a conversation. 

“We’re not ‘buddy-buddy,’ we’ve just been talking,” she says. “He’s nice when he’s not being a show-off.”

Keith nods like he doesn’t believe her, or like he knows something even she doesn’t—however she interprets his gesture, it works, because they then start talking about her, and Lance, and moving on, and shitty exes, and how Lotor keeps sending her bitchy texts about someone keying his car like she had anything to do with it. Keith keeps his cool when the subject comes up. Then they drink the rest of their coffee and talk and joke, and it’s a good two hours before Allura brings up the subject of him and Hunk again, though it’s of course just to say “Stop being so obtuse.”

Keith would very much like to stop being obtuse if it meant he would kiss Hunk, but he can’t figure out what to do. Or _how,_ or _when_ to do what he totally doesn’t know he should do. He just calls Hunk that night when he’s in bed, and they watch some videos together. Keith smiles his usual Hunk smiles and laughs and tells him to shut up at least ten times when Hunk is teasing him about his soup or his hair or his clothes, and they fall asleep on the phone.


	7. Planning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> getting close to the end finally lol

Allura steps into the café and looks around for roughly one second before she spots Lance enthusiastically waving his arm at her. He’s smiling wide and bright and silly; she knows he’s completely smitten and doesn’t even attempt to hide it, and she does find it endearing, but she’d be lying if she said it doesn’t get a little awkward at times. Like the last time they all went to a party and he kept bringing her drinks and stealing the bowl of chips for her and then stealing the actual bag of chips for her. He really is much better when it’s just the two of them. 

But that is not the case today. Pidge is sitting next to him, and so Allura says hello and sits on the other side. They’re going over the last details of the very small surprise birthday party she’s planning for Keith. She gathered all of Lotor’s stuff still left at her apartment just this week and put it in a box, which she has been referring to as “The Box of Shame,” and the thought of driving over to his place and delivering it and hearing him complain for the millionth time about how his insurance wouldn’t pay to fix his car like she’s supposed to give a shit isn’t appealing at the moment, so she’s putting all her energy into this little party. Pidge was the one who offered to help her plan it, and then of course, Lance came along. Not that it bothers her, she’ll take whatever help she needs, and if Lance just keeps on being his silly, distracting self, that’s just going to push her boiling bitterness away for a little longer. So it’s a win-win for everyone. 

It’s not a big thing that she’s planning. Neither she nor Keith have that many friends, and she is pretty sure that if she had surprised him with a giant bowl of popcorn and pretzels and a bag of Doritos the size of his torso at the door on his birthday and told him she would watch another hour-long tinfoil hat conspiracy theory video with him he would have been ecstatic. She just wants to do something a little more special. 

Broke as she is, she can’t plan something as big and spectacular as she’d want, no matter how much she loves him or how much she believes in the power of friendship; so what they come up with is just having someone show up early at a bar Keith likes and saving a table in the back for all of them. But then, the issue of Pidge being under 21 comes up. Then, they can’t think of a good reason why Allura would have to drive Keith to Pidge’s apartment or Lance’s apartment or anyone’s apartment for that matter, so they get stuck in square one for a little longer than anticipated. 

“I mean, we can just… Go to a restaurant, maybe?” Pidge suggests after a long, long fruitless silence.

“That’s too expensive,” Lance says, defeated. 

“A movie?”

“Pidge,” he deadpans. “Expensive.”

“Why don’t we just have it at your apartment, Allura?” Pidge says, a little irritated. “And we just have someone take Keith out for a few hours before it?”

“I suppose we can do that if we can’t think of anything better,” she says. “As a last resort.”

After twenty minutes, they move on to the task of deciding who will keep Keith distracted for a couple hours. 

“Just ask Hunk,” Lance says, practically rolling his eyes. “Give him an excuse to ask Keith out on a date already, geez. Make it a birthday present from all of us.”

Allura nods. They have been quite dumb about each other from the start. For some reason, which she guesses has something to do with a shattered self-esteem from a certain clowny asshole, Keith is completely oblivious to Hunk’s blatant heart-eyes or how she can hear them through the wall talking almost every night or the way they both try to hide their schoolgirl-with-a-crush giggles behind manly chuckles or pats on the shoulder, which she thinks is completely ridiculous, but she’s not one to judge. Apparently Lance and even Pidge have seen this, too. So this might be a good idea, after all. 

“Yeah, listen, I’ll just tell him we need to have Keith out of the apartment for a couple hours. I’m sure he’ll be up for that,” Pidge says. 

“He’s gonna take him star-gazing or get a horse-driven carriage and a dozen roses or something and then the party will feel boring. Tell him to bring it down a notch,” Lance says, and Allura can’t even tell if he’s being serious.

“I think it’s cute how you just assume he’s not gonna be petrified to ask him in the first place,” Pidge says, pulling out her phone to start typing out a message. “You know what’s gonna happen, he’s gonna get nervous and cave under the pressure and walk Keith to get an ice cream cone before he panics and splits.”

“He did that _one time_ , Pidge.”

“Yeah, and he wasn’t half as stupid over that girl as he’s over Keith.”

“But,” Lance licks some whipped cream off his spoon and points it at Pidge, “he did end up dating her. It’s that foolish charm.”

“Hunk?” Allura blinks, because she’s only seen him act cool and unaffected around all of them.

“Yep. He looks chill and tough and whatever but it’s all a mask, he’s a whole mess.”

Allura is pleased to hear this. Not that she didn’t suspect it, because they’re both more transparent than cellophane, but it’s always nice to have validation. She hears them talk about the dumb things Hunk’s done and said thinking they haven’t noticed, like smiling like a dope at his phone whenever he gets a text from Keith, or showing them the pics of random stuff Keith sends him, or going grocery shopping and pointing at things that he thinks Keith would like, or things he could cook for Keith that he would like, or bringing up Keith every three seconds in every conversation. “Doesn’t Keith have great eyes, guys? Like, they look blue but also a little violet-y, you know?” and “Oh, man, Keith is so smart. You know, in class the other day he solved so and so in three seconds and my mind was blown. He’s so smart. A guy that pretty shouldn’t be that smart.” And of course it’s fun to hear since all she’s seen is the cool and collected Hunk who knows how to smile a dashing smile and make the right joke at the right time to have everyone in stitches, and she wouldn’t have bet money on him being every bit as much of an infatuated mess as Keith.

So she understands their pain, because Keith is the same. Hunk this, Hunk that, Hunk, Hunk, Hunk. It’s endearing, sure, but it’s getting on her nerves that it’s been two months and not one of them has actually done anything about it. 

Then, with everyone on the same page, Allura starts texting their other friends, and Lance looks up a bakery that won’t charge them out the wazoo for a nice cake. By the time they have it all figured out and they all have aired their grievances about Hunk and Keith’s foolishness, Allura feels like she had quite the productive evening, and though she’s a little giddy when she gets back to the apartment, she manages to contain herself when Keith says hello. He’s got his nose in a giant book and a deep frown on his face, so it’s his major concentration look, which means he’s really having a hard time with whatever he’s reading. Allura decides to leave him to it. She doubts she would be able to hold a decent conversation without spoiling the surprise for him anyway, and so she goes into the kitchen to get her dinner and then disappears into her room. When her phone chimes, it’s a text from Lance. Just letting her know he had a great time today with a smiley face emoji just for good measure. She rolls her eyes, but she can’t help the little smile on her face when she lies down and types out a reply. 

*****

“Hunk, you’ve gone out with him before. Many times,” Lance says, exasperated, pinching the bridge of his nose. 

“Not like this!” Hunk replies, very loudly, while Pidge sits upside down on their couch with her legs hanging in the air and a lollipop in her mouth, just observing. Like a very small, very judgmental bat. 

“You’ve napped and _cuddled_ together, how is this a bigger deal?” she asks, after popping the candy out of her mouth. 

“That was an accident.”

“A very, very gay one,” Pidge points out, her words a little distorted from having the lollipop back in her mouth, but clear enough for Hunk to stare at her and Lance to sigh. 

“Dude,” Lance says, and grabs Hunk by the shoulders. “Dude. Listen. Just call and ask if he wants to do something on Saturday. Make up a bullshit excuse to see him, like you wanna go over notes or buy something or whatever. It’s no big deal. I swear to you.”

Hunk bites his lip and sits down on one of their mismatched dining room chairs. “I don’t know.”

Lance lets out an exaggerated groan and grabs Hunk’s shoulders again to shake him a little bit. “Hunk, dude, come on. Just go get coffee, you guys have done that literally a million times.”

Pidge makes a ‘hm’ sound and opens her mouth to speak. Lance knows misusing the word ‘literally’ is apparently one of her pet peeves. He doesn’t give her a chance to even grunt about it, though, he just hushes her and focuses on Hunk again. 

“What makes you so nervous?”

“I’ll fuck up,” Hunk admits. “I’ll say the wrong thing or I’ll fuck up and say something about the party. I’m gonna be too much of a mess, man, you know this.”

“Hunk!” Lance whines, “Come on, dude, pull it together. Just call him and ask him out for coffee.”

“I don’t know—”

Lance yanks the phone out of Hunk’s hands and refuses to give it back until Hunk gives him his password, which results in Hunk chasing him around the living room a couple of times before he finally gives up and agrees to unlock it for him. Pidge observes from her spot, laughing to herself. When Hunk flops down on the chair again, he taps the button to call Keith’s number feeling Lance’s expectant and very annoying eyes on him. 

Keith picks up the phone with a sleepy voice that makes Hunk smile instantly. “H’llo.”

“Hey, buddy,” Hunk says in a bizarrely unusual soft voice, and throws the nearest object at Lance when he catches him rolling his eyes. It happens to be an oatmeal cookie he left out. It died a necessary and noble death. “Hey, so, I was just wondering if you uh, if you have anything to do on Saturday?”

Pidge makes gestures with her arm to encourage him, while Lance just stands there with his arms crossed. 

“Just work, huh? What time do you get off? Oh, cool, cool. That’s a good time.”

The oatmeal cookie hits him right in the cheek, courtesy of Lance. Hunk yelps and then growls as quietly as he can and just throws it back, harder, but Lance dodges it and then laughs—Pidge, of course, immediately shushes him, and Hunk shifts nervously on the chair to look away from them. 

“No, I’m fine, just Lance being himself. I’m gonna put antifreeze in his food later, don’t worry about it,” Hunk says, turning to give Lance a death stare. “Anyway, uh. Do you wanna hang out after? We could uh…” he turns to Pidge, for some reason, and watches her mimic sipping a cup. “Go get coffee or something? Or dinner? On me.”

There’s a long silence that makes Pidge and Lance focus all their attention on Hunk, and it feels like they would all hear a needle drop with how still and quiet they are. 

“Awesome! Yeah, buddy, I can pick you up at four when you’re done. Yeah? Sound good? Alright, awesome. I’ll see you then. Yeah. Yeah, sure, I’ll text you. Bye.”

Hunk lets out a deep, deep sigh and leans back on the chair, looking like he just ran a marathon. 

Lance walks over and gives a leg of the chair a little kick. “Dude, that was painful to watch.”

“No one told you to watch, _Lancet,_ ” Hunk crosses his arms and frowns, but his gesture softens when he turns to look at Pidge. 

“Well I think you did great,” she says. “You’re finally going on a date with him, now you can spare us all the,” she babbles and makes an exaggerated loving, dreamy face, her hands clasped together. “’Oh, Keith is so hot, he’s so smart, he’s so funny’,” she mocks. 

“’Oh, when will Keith notice how balls-deep in love with him I am’,” Lance says in the same mocking tone, and though it makes Hunk laugh, he still stands up and stands between them. 

“You’re both such assholes,” he sentences, and walks over to the kitchen. 

“We love you, Hunk!” Pidge shouts. “We just want you to be happy!”

“We just want you to start getting some so you can stop baking shit at three in the morning!” Lance shouts back. 

Hunk peeks out the door and flips him off. “I was gonna make you those blondies you like but you can kiss them goodbye. And you can kiss my ass while you’re at it,” he says before disappearing back in the kitchen. 

It takes Lance half a second to start apologizing, and even less for Pidge to come close to having a giggle fit. 

Hunk isn’t really mad at them. He knows he needs a little push sometimes, so they eat dinner in peace, joking and throwing around ideas of where he can take Keith. 

He stays up most of the night, thinking and smiling. And yeah, baking.


	8. Constellations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> full gay has been achieved

Hunk spends a good ten minutes fixing his hair in front of the mirror that Saturday. He takes a few seconds to look closely at himself in a full-body mirror, after, and decides he looks good enough. It’s chilly, maybe a little more than he was used to, but it gives him a chance to wear his faux leather jacket without feeling like he’s in a slow cooker. So, he looks pretty okay, if he does say so himself, even though he’s still attempting to grow a full beard and it makes him look a little disheveled. But grunge is back or whatever, it goes well with his brown and yellow flannel and his ripped jeans and his boots. He could be a poster boy for alternative early-90s looks, probably. 

Lance was kind enough to let him borrow the piece of junk he calls a car, and Hunk knows he should be nicer to the poor toaster that is really trying its best not to fall apart, but man, it’s hard when it makes him this nervous. He feels like the thing will spontaneously combust if he hits the brakes too fast, but he should be more grateful, so he doesn’t complain. Maybe he’s just complaining about it inside his head to avoid the real reason he’s nervous. 

Truth is he’s just never been all that good in the romantic department. He’s dated plenty, he thinks, he’s not _unlucky_ or anything, he’s just three parts anxiety and one part excellent acting skills. 

He was pretty struck by Keith when he first saw him. When he sat next to him on that first class back in August he could see what looked like a highlighter print on the side of his face and it was endearing—it was hilarious and endearing, and Keith was such a wreck Hunk couldn’t help but keep looking back at him. And the thing about Hunk’s anxiety and his insecurities is that they automatically come out as a relaxed kind of self-confidence. He doesn’t know if it’s a defense mechanism, he doesn’t know why or how he does it, he just knows he initiates conversations like it’s no big deal while he’s hyperventilating inside and frantically looking for a metaphorical paper bag to breathe in, and all the while people around him just go with it. They laugh at his jokes, they blush when he winks (and fuck knows why he even does that in the first place), they giggle when he softly elbows their ribs, and apparently by the time whatever interaction was happening is over, they all go away believing Hunk was flirting with them, and next thing he knows they’re flirting back, and next thing he knows he’s celebrating a six-month anniversary. It all just kind of _happens_.

So it is a little nerve-wrecking when he actually sets out to put effort into it. Just like he is now.

He parks the car about a block away from the farmers’ market and steps off, and it would be a little embarrassing how he remembers the exact location of the stand where Keith works if he didn’t have an excellent memory to blame it on. He sees Keith in the distance, helping Kolivan and another ridiculously tall man pack up. They make lifting boxes look like they’re lifting cotton balls, while Keith struggles to just wrap his arms around one of them. So, Hunk jogs a little bit to get to him and help. 

“Hey buddy,” he says, “need a hand?”

“No, I got it,” Keith says, straining, so Hunk grabs the box from him anyway, paying no attention to Keith insisting he can do it.

Hunk follows Kolivan to his truck, making small talk and feeling somewhat… Examined by the way Kolivan and that other humongous dude are looking at him. What’s the proper protocol to follow when meeting someone’s kind-of-step-uncle? Once he’s helped them load another box, the last one, they all stand behind the truck, and Kolivan and other dude look at him with their arms crossed and a very serious expression on their faces. 

“So, uh. I’m gonna get going then,” Keith says. 

“Take care,” Kolivan says to Keith, but he looks at Hunk, and so Hunk swallows really hard and feels the need to say that he’ll have him home by eight before he remembers Keith doesn’t live with them. It’s a fear reaction.

“We will,” Keith says, and they shake hands. 

As they watch the truck turn around the next corner, Keith lets out a sigh and turns to look at Hunk, apologetic and a little blushed. “I’m sorry, they’re just. He’s just protective of me. I don’t think he understands I’m not 12 anymore.”

“No, I get that, no worries,” Hunk says. 

Then he stops to look at Keith. To _really_ look at Keith. He’s seen him wear nice clothes before, at parties and whatever, so there should be nothing different—he’s sure Keith’s worn the same kind of black button-up shirt at least twelve times before, and the same dark jeans, but somehow it all looks different now. Keith’s eyes look prettier, his hair looks blacker, his lips look softer. He looks more handsome and kissable than he’s seen him before, even that night they keyed that low-budget Lestat’s car when he wanted to kiss Keith so bad. Or when Keith brought him his unseasoned soup and he wanted to kiss him so bad. He really wants to do it again, now. Because the sunlight is coming in a little tilted from where the sun is about to start setting, and because everything is covered in soft orange and warm yellow, and because Keith’s eyes look almost purple and he’s smiling one of his rare, tiny smiles. 

Then, Hunk realizes he’s been staring at him for too long. 

“Hey, buddy,” he says, again, and gives him a pat on the shoulder. 

“Hey, Hunk. Where are we going?”

“I’m glad you ask,” Hunk says. “I’m taking you to the barcade.”

Keith snorts. Hunk loves it—there’s crinkles on the corners of his eyes and the violet-blue in them lights up, and it’s just so damn cute how his smile spreads all across his face. Keith brings a hand up to cover his mouth because of the ungodly snort he let out, but he recovers quickly. 

“Really?”

“Yeah!” Hunk says with as much enthusiasm as he feels anxiety. He wants to wrap his arm around Keith’s shoulders, he really does, and he wants to pull him in, but it’s like his hand is superglued to the inside of his pants pocket. “I’m gonna kick your ass in Street Fighter.”

“Oh, oh, we’re gonna see about that, big guy,” Keith says, and almost hops excitedly to Lance’s car. 

Hunk was not familiar with this competitive side of Keith. The place is dimly lit and pretty relaxed, in Hunk’s opinion, but instead of heading over to order a drink, Keith goes immediately to the arcade section of it and starts looking at all the games. He stands in front of the Galaga machine and starts up a new game, and his eyes are practically sparkling. Hunk just gets them the same beer and stands next to him taking sips of his own, watching him shrug off his jacket and roll back his sleeves to get ready like he was about to kick someone’s ass instead of playing an old nerdy game. Hunk can’t stop smiling. Keith exclaims and curses almost theatrically, and when he loses he finally grabs his beer and lets Hunk have at it. Galaga isn’t Hunk’s forte, so when he ends up with a much lower score than Keith, it’s impossible to shut him up. He laughs at Hunk and gives him a playful shove and playfully says he sucks, and Hunk wants to playfully shut him up with a playful kiss, but he hasn’t had enough beers to seriously consider that. So, since it’s his turn to pick the game, he moves them over to the closest pinball machine, and Keith lets him go first. Hunk manages to put himself in the third place of the highest scores, and he turns to smile smugly at Keith, and he swears he can see a touch of intimidation in his pretty eyes, but Keith hides it well. 

“Let’s see you do better,” Hunk teases him. 

“Yeah. Yeah, I will, just watch me,” Keith says. 

He doesn’t do better. Out of the goodness of his heart, Hunk lets him try a second time because Keith lost the first ball after shooting it inside the machine, which made Hunk cackle, but he is a kind soul, after all. So, Keith tries again. And again, he doesn’t even manage to make it to the top ten highest scores, no matter how loud he grunts or how creative he gets with his curses. 

“This machine is broken,” Keith says, pouting, once he’s lost his last ball. 

Hunk laughs a little too loud and gives him a pat on the shoulder. “It sure is, buddy.”

Smiling, Keith rolls his eyes at him. But, by god, he doesn’t let it go. He buys another game and gives it his all, to the point where he starts to get sweaty and the way he grits his teeth and grunts makes Hunk think less than pure thoughts for a second, because, wow, Keith’s voice when he’s doing that. Hunk swallows and clears his throat and pretends he wasn’t just thinking… whatever he was thinking, and when Keith loses again without coming close to Hunk’s score, he rubs his arm. “Come on, man, let’s go get some food in you so you can try again.”

“Fine,” Keith pouts. It’s precious. 

They have another beer and a sandwich each, sitting at a small table in the back of the room. Keith’s talking about how he’s been saving money to get a tattoo. He’s telling Hunk all about it, from the budgets he’s asked a few artists about to the design he’s made himself—and Hunk knew Keith had a talent for drawing, judging by the doodles he’s made all over his notes, but he wasn’t sure how serious it was until Keith pulls out his phone and shows him the picture he made of it. It’s impressive: it’s a beautifully outlined knife surrounded by intricate roses and vines and three constellations drawn as a kind of frame. Hunk can’t really say much more than “Wow” and keep reassuring Keith that it’s beautiful, because every new thing he learns about Keith—from how competitive he gets at old school arcade games to this—pretty much takes his breath away. And the way Keith shrugs it off with a little dismissive gesture like it’s nothing—Hunk realizes just how gone he is. Again. 

“I hope you’re enjoying the date,” Hunk says after a quick lull in the conversation, taking a large gulp of his beer in hopes that it will make his nervousness wash away. 

Blushing furiously, Keith almost chokes on his own beer. “Date?”

“Yeah. Come on, Keith, don’t tell me you didn’t know what this was.”

Keith stammers. His face turns at least five different shades of red ranging from lightly tinted pink to an angry red. “Uh, yeah. Yeah, I am. Wow, thanks. Thank you.”

Hunk laughs. Keith being this much of a mess somehow makes him bold enough, and he takes Keith’s hand on the table, and rubs his thumb back and forth across his knuckles. He can almost hear every bit of air leaving Keith’s lungs in one second, and he’s worried Keith will run out the door, but he just squeezes Hunk’s hand and gives him a dopey smile. They stay like that for a few minutes, in silence, and then Hunk hears something like a tiny, drawn out chuckle coming from Keith as he strokes Hunk’s fingers in return. 

“Wow,” Keith says, his cheekbones still looking like bright red apples. “Wow. You.”

Hunk laughs. “Wanna go play something else? I’ll let you win.”

“Fuck off,” Keith says, beaming, and stands up taking Hunk’s hand. He guides him over to the Ms. Pac-Man machine.

Keith doesn’t stop smiling, at all, after that. He loses too fast, but he smiles up at Hunk, and when Hunk effortlessly scores much, much higher than him, he pulls out his tongue at him and then smiles. Hunk hadn’t seen him this happy, possibly ever, and it makes him a little lightheaded to think that this date is the reason, or that _he_ is the reason. He likes this look on Keith. He wants Keith to smile like this all the time, for a long, long time.

The next time Hunk starts a game, he’s getting close to beating the highest score again, real close, ‘he just needs to keep this up for another thirty seconds’-close, and Keith stands flush behind him and rests his chin on Hunk’s shoulder, standing on his toes, Hunk guesses. Keith gives the side of his neck a soft, gentle nuzzle, and Hunk feels butterflies and a drop in his stomach that make him feel like he was somehow shot straight out of a canon to float in the clouds. It distracts him enough that he loses, and until then he realizes it was Keith’s evil plan by the way he cackles and steps away from him. 

“Keith!” Hunk yells, fake-mad. “I swear to god, Keith, come back here!” he chases after him, because Keith immediately ran away from him into a little dark corner just outside of the restrooms.

When Hunk catches up to him, he’s having a giggle fit. There’s pink and blue neon lights shining on him from random signs on the walls around them, one shaped like an ice cream cone, one a simple one that spells out the word GAMES. There’s pink and blue on his hair and on his skin, on his silly smile, reflected in his eyes. He’s leaning against the wall, and his soft, uncontrollable laugh is possibly the sweetest thing Hunk’s ever heard. 

“You little shit,” Hunk whispers, and takes Keith’s chin almost delicately with his fingers. And he leans in to kiss him. 

He can feel Keith’s smile against his lips at first, and he can feel it fading as it begins to dawn on the both of them that this is really happening, that they’re really kissing in a dimly-lit corner of an arcade bar bathed in silly neon lights pulled straight from an 80’s design magazine. Keith’s kiss is soft and sweet, there’s a hint of beer taste in it and leftover laughter, but Hunk thinks it’s the perfect mixture of it all. Keith kisses him back almost hesitantly, in that way Hunk thinks is natural after everything Keith’s told him: all the heartaches and heartbreaks and insecurities. When Hunk’s hands touch the sides of Keith’s neck, Keith reaches up to touch his wrists and his hesitation evaporates. Then, it’s all Hunk ever imagined kissing Keith would be like, and then some: it’s sweet and slow and delicious, and Keith gives his lower lip a small, playful bite before smiling again. Keith melts into him so easily; when Hunk steps closer to him and Keith wraps his arms around his shoulders it’s like he was always meant to be there. Hunk is still floating by the time they break up the kiss to get some air, and he strokes the side of Keith’s face with his knuckles. He’s looking up at Hunk with stars in his eyes, warm and indescribable, and Hunk gives him a little lopsided smile. 

“Hey,” Keith whispers, and chews a little on his lower lip. 

“Hey, buddy.”

Keith’s skin is a lot softer than he would have imagined.

They decide to leave. They decide to stop the car next to a park, only a few minutes away from Keith’s apartment, and Hunk knows he’s not supposed to bring Keith up there for at least another forty minutes, but he’s sure they can find a way to occupy their time. 

Keith gets out of the car first, and sits up on the hood, gesturing at Hunk to come and join him. Now, Hunk isn’t sure having two people sit on it is the wisest idea, considering the state of the poor toaster, but then he thinks of Lance’s face, and he just goes for it. He and Keith rest their heads on the windshield, close to each other, so close that Keith reaches down and laces his fingers with Hunk’s, and they’re both looking up at whatever stars they can see up in the sky. 

Keith says he always wanted to be an astronaut as he stretches his arm and points at the brightest star they can see. Hunk says he always wanted that, too. He says maybe one day they will travel to space. 

“I hope we can do it together,” Keith says with a soft voice, turning over to look at Hunk, who had been looking at Keith instead of looking at the dark sky. “Go fly in the stars.”

“I hope so too, buddy,” Hunk squeezes his hand. 

Keith kisses him again. Without hesitation or fear or doubt, he stretches his neck to reach Hunk and just kisses him. Slow and calm, tasting his lips, biting them softly, being playful and lazy with his tongue. Hunk pulls him closer with a hand on his waist and soon their chests are pressed against each other, and Hunk swears he can feel Keith’s heart beating loud and fast and excited, in perfect sync with his own, and he knows he could spend hours just doing this. Kissing Keith under the stars and the beautiful October moon.

“I’ve been wanting to do this since I first saw you,” Keith whispers after a while, who knows how long, stroking the stubble on the side of Hunk’s face. 

“Me too.”

In the end, Hunk doesn’t have to worry about the time. They’re late for Keith’s surprise birthday party, but he’s sure no one, especially Keith, will make a big deal out of it.


	9. December 15th

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sweet, sweet things.

December 15th 

Keith wakes up grunting because the sunlight hits his eyes directly. He’s read about people describing sunlight in the morning tickling their noses to gently awaken them from soft, beautiful dreams and the peaceful warmth of the rays and other such crap like that, but to him, personally, it feels like the early morning light just straight up punched him in the forehead. He scrunches his face, grunts again, and rolls over. 

In his slumber he hadn’t fully realized where he was, but as soon as his body meets Hunk’s, as soon as his bare skin feels Hunk’s warmth, a smile appears on his lips. He opens his eyes just barely, meets the back of Hunk’s neck and looks up to see that he is indeed in Hunk’s bedroom. He didn’t dream any of it. He _did_ spend the night here, after having sex with him for the first time. Softly, he wraps his arm around Hunk and cuddles closer against him, hearing him breathe and tracing lazy circles around Hunk’s navel. It _was_ real. All of it. 

Keith thinks of the way Hunk kissed him and remembers how his hands felt on his body. He remembers bites and kisses and the tingling feeling in his belly as he snuggles into the back of Hunk’s neck. There’s still the trace of a bite mark on Hunk’s shoulder and a tiny bruise on the side of his neck that Keith put there, and he would be embarrassed about the one scratch mark he left on Hunk’s back if he wasn’t so damn happy. That warm, tingly sensation is back when Hunk shifts a little and lets out the tiniest sound; it makes Keith want to kiss every inch of his body and lie on top of him like the world’s most obnoxious blanket for the rest of the week. So instead of doing that, he only presses one kiss to Hunk’s shoulder. 

It only takes a few more minutes before Hunk shifts again and stretches his arms and legs, letting out a sleepy groan and rolling over on his back. Keith’s giant, infatuated eyes are the first thing he sees, and he smiles as he touches Keith’s cheek. 

“Hey, buddy,” Hunk mumbles with the sleepiest voice and pokes the tip of Keith’s nose. “Mornin’.”

“Morning, big guy,” Keith whispers and leans in to kiss him. 

It’s soft and it reminds Keith of the first time they kissed—but if he’s being honest, he feels that way almost every single time they do kiss. Like it’s the first time and he’s giddy with excitement and two beers and over the moon because he wasn’t imagining things and Hunk really, actually liked him back. Keith returns the kiss with Hunk’s hands cradling his face and their bodies flush together under the sheets, and they barely pull apart when Hunk’s hands rest on his back and they share a smile. 

Under the sunlight, Hunk’s eyes look warm and soft, the color of honey and absolutely stunning. The stubble on his face has grown into a slightly more respectable beard; he doesn’t look like a disheveled 90’s grunge rocker anymore, but he looks breathtakingly handsome in a way that never ceases to amaze Keith. He strokes Hunk’s beard with his fingertips, feeling a tiny bit of jealousy since he himself seems incapable of growing a single facial hair, and Hunk kisses Keith’s palm. 

“Not to kill the mood,” Hunk says, and, with his hand still on the small of Keith’s back, he pulls him a little closer, “but didn’t that kiss make you a little hard?”

Keith laughs quietly, feeling the tips of his ears tinted red. Why would he even deny it? He guesses Hunk is still thinking about the night before, just like he is, and the way Hunk touches a tiny hickey next to Keith’s collarbone is good enough confirmation for him. Keith kisses him again, with a little more purpose this time, and Hunk pulls him in close and very, very easily can roll on his back and pull Keith along on top of him. Keith is pretty sure he will never, ever, get sick of that. 

*****

Allura said nothing when she saw Keith—nothing _verbally_ , because the way her eyes widened and she sucked her lips in was loud enough for Keith to realize he should have put on a scarf. Allura cleared her throat in a way that sounded suspiciously like a choked laugh, and just waved hello to the two of them without uttering a single word. Keith knew his face was the color of a maraschino cherry but he likes to think that he handled it with dignity, pulling his shoulders up to his ears and sneaking into Allura’s car as fast as he possibly could. 

Allura is driving them to the airport, since Hunk is going back home for winter break. He will be gone and come back just after New Year’s, and even though Keith frowned and pouted endlessly and gave Hunk a grumpy attitude for a solid day, there was no way of changing his flight to spend New Year’s Eve back here. But Keith will be fine. He will just miss him terribly. He’s not very good at saying goodbyes, even if it’s just for a couple of weeks. 

And Hunk is just so damn happy. He sat on the passenger’s seat at Keith’s insistence, because Keith didn’t want Hunk to see him crossing his arms and looking like a very upset cat all the way there. In the rearview mirror, Keith can see Hunk’s face light up as he tells Allura all about his family: he talks about his mom, his dad, his brothers and cousins and nephews and all the amazing food he’s missed so much; he tells her funny Christmas morning stories from his days as a little boy who was obsessed with Transformers and how his dad broke his foot one time trying to put together an extremely heavy shelf. 

“Of course it’s hilarious now, but man, I was scared shitless,” Hunk laughs, and then Keith does too. “I thought the evil shelf had killed my dad.”

“Come on,” Allura says, laughing. 

“Yeah, you know, like in The Wizard of Oz? When the house falls on the witch and you just see her shoes all creepy-like? But like, the other way around. We couldn’t see his feet.”

Both Keith and Allura cackle. 

“And you thought _that_ killed him?” Allura asks. 

“Hunk, what the fuck,” Keith laughs. 

“I was like, four, Keith!” Hunk complains and turns on the seat to look at him—and his eyes are so bright it almost takes Keith’s breath away. He loves seeing Hunk like this, like he’s the sun just casually sitting in the passenger’s side of Allura’s car. He wants to see him like this all the time. “God, you guys are so judgmental.”

When they finally arrive at the airport and Allura parks her car, they walk along with Hunk past the food court and towards the gates. The place is packed, extremely loud, extremely bright, and extremely chaotic, and Keith has never been the best at handling crowds, but he tries his hardest to stay focused. Every now and then, Hunk wraps an arm around Keith’s shoulders and squeezes him close, and it makes an immediate sense of safety wash over Keith every time. There’s still butterflies in his stomach every time Hunk touches him or smiles at him or kisses him, but for the most part they seem to have been replaced by that warmth and safety he can’t really explain. It’s something that just feels right. Like this was where he was supposed to be all along. 

“Okay, guys, thanks for bringing me,” Hunk says, standing steps away from the crowded line. He’s got the backpack on his shoulders, his phone in his hand, and the little carry-on suitcase with wheels at his side. 

Keith is pointedly looking at the floor. 

Allura steps forward and hugs Hunk, but of course, what he does is squeeze the life out of her and even lift her a couple of inches off the ground with how effusive he is. When she’s back on the floor, she smiles wide at him. 

“Take it easy on Lance, okay?” Hunk says, sounding concerned, though he’s more than likely faking at least half of it, or so Keith hopes. 

Allura rolls her eyes, but Keith can see a smile peeking at the corners of her lips. “I just agreed to _one_ date.”

“I know, I know. Just don’t ask him to like, sell everything he owns to buy a friggin cow or something stupid, you know he’d do it.”

Allura looks a little flustered. She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear and tries her hardest to pretend that she is everything _but_ flustered, but Keith knows better. He’s sure Hunk does, too. 

“I promise,” she says, rolling her eyes through the widest smile Keith’s seen on her face in months. 

“Come here, buddy,” Hunk says, his arms wide open for Keith. 

Keith doesn’t want to cry. He feels stupid for even articulating that thought inside his head: Hunk is going away for less than three weeks and he feels like crying. It’s irrational and childish and he just can’t stop; he doesn’t even realize he’s just standing there, not moving towards his boyfriend and _pouting_ until Hunk is the one who walks towards him, saying “Awww, buddy,” in a way that makes Keith want to cry even _more._ But damn it, he won’t do it. He thinks that if he keeps his arms crossed his eyes will stay dry by some mystical form of magic, but then Hunk’s arms are around him, squeezing him really tight, and the waterworks start. 

“Keith, buddy, don’t cry,” Hunk says against his neck with such a tender voice it kind of triggers Keith’s fight or sob response. But thankfully he does neither. “I’ll be back in a couple weeks, baby!”

“I know,” Keith groans, sinking his face into the crook of Hunk’s neck and breathing him in. 

He struggles a little to release his arms, and when he finally does, he squeezes Hunk as hard as he can. “I’ll miss you.”

“I’ll miss you too, buddy,” Hunk pulls back just enough to give Keith’s cheek a tiny squeeze, a little stroke to disguise the fact that he’s wiping away a tiny tear. 

Hunk smiles at him in a way Keith is sure no one has ever smiled at him before; he keeps his arms around him, holding him, in a way Keith’s sure he’s never been held before. He can feel Hunk’s heart beating against his chest, smell traces of the coffee they had earlier mixed in with his cologne. It feels like home. 

Before he can rationalize what he’s doing, Keith holds Hunk’s face in his hands and stands on his tiptoes to kiss him, and he kisses him like he had a million things to say with every touch of his lips and every sigh—and maybe he does. Maybe there are a million things he wants Hunk to know, like how impressed and proud he is of him getting an A in every single one of his classes or how he’s the sweetest person he knows, or how he feels, sometimes, like Hunk is a bright star walking among the rest of them, mere mortals. How happy he is, how much he’s helped him heal just by being Hunk. There are a million things Keith wants to say in that kiss, but when he pulls away and looks at Hunk’s honey eyes and his soft smile, there’s really only one he can think of. 

“I love you.”

He sees Hunk’s eyes widen and can practically _hear_ the beat his heart skips. So Keith immediately thinks he fucked it up by being too honest too soon. But the next thing he feels is the touch of Hunk’s hands cradling his face in that way he does, and a soft kiss on his lips. 

“I love you too, buddy.”

At least it makes Keith stop crying. 

Hunk waves goodbye before joining the line, and Allura is holding both her hands in front of her chest and looking at them with that distinct look on her face that she has when she watches cheesy romance movies. Keith stands next to her, and she wraps an arm around his shoulders as Hunk waves once more in the distance before disappearing behind the gate. 

She doesn’t rush Keith. She lets him stand there watching the glass door for a few minutes, a tiny smile on his face and his cheeks tinted a little pink. She rubs his arm and makes him lean into her, giving his shoulder a tiny squeeze when he does it almost instinctively. His head is almost tucked under her chin, and she musses his hair a little bit. 

“Are you ready to leave?” she asks him with a soft voice. 

“Yep.”

Keith gets a text from Hunk—the last one he can send before he’s in the air for five hours. It reads: _miss u already. love you_

He can’t stop smiling the rest of the day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading! i enjoyed writing this a lot so i hope you enjoyed reading it too!

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! You can find me on twitter @gothshirogane and on tumblr @gothgalrakeith


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